S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 103

The Murderer Who Returned From Hell 03 – Murder

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Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had just arrived home when they were surrounded by a multitude of felines that pounced out of the house.

A group of big cats and small cats pinned Zhan Zhao down, rubbing against him in various ways.

Carrying large bags of travelling gifts, the crowd entered the house together.

Gongsun and Zhan Zhao, who had slept well on the plane, continued to discuss the Wheel of Caleb while sorting out their travelling gifts. Bai Jintang and Bai Yutang ignored the two who were tossing and turning in the middle of the night and hurriedly went upstairs to take a bath and get ready for bed.

Gongsun flipped open a huge suitcase and took out several large and small boxes from inside. The twins curiously came up and asked, "My Lord, are these all contraband?"

Gongsun opened a box to show them...

"Mama~" The twins caught a glimpse of a skeleton and turned around to run in fear.

Gongsun took the skeleton out and placed it on the table.

Zhan Zhao reached out and touched it, "Is it a replica of the crystal skull?"

"Mhmm." Gongsun nodded, "It's an alarm clock." After saying that, it clicked... and they heard the alarm clock emit a series of creepy "hehehe, hehehe" laughter.

"This foreign style!" Zhan Zhao held it up to see.

At this time, another car stopped outside.

The twins who had been scared upstairs by Gongsun's skeleton alarm clock plopped down on the stairway to the second floor and said, "Chi Chi and Zhao Zhen are back..."

The two had not yet come through the door when the crowd heard a lion's roar... Lisbon had not seen Bai Chi and Zhao Zhen for a long time, he rushed out, his two big cat paws wrapped around Bai Chi, and his big head rubbed against him.

Zhao Zhen and Bai Chi finally walked in, put down the luggage and spread out on the sofa.

Lisbon wrapped his arms around the two men and continued to rub against them.

Zhao Zhen patted Lisbon's big head and lamented, "What a frightening journey, we almost couldn't come back."

The twins asked, "What's wrong? Encountered turbulence ah?"

"The plane was no problem, but the driver you called to pick us up had problems." Zhao Zhen leaned back on the sofa holding a pillow.

The twins looked at each other, "No way? Old Meng is a good driver and has been driving for us for years."

"Let Zhan Zhao have a look at him first." Zhao Zhen was speechless, "He braked sharply at least three times along the way, recognised the wrong road twice, and even ran a red light once."

"No way?!" Da Ding was shocked.

Xiao Bai Chi rested on Lisbon's big furry head and also nodded, "Yeah, he was nervous. At first, he said that there was a person lying on the glass of the rear window, then while driving properly, he said that he bumped into a small child, and after that, he almost drove into oncoming traffic."

"What happened afterwards?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Afterwards, Chi Chi and I drove him to the hospital, then notified his family to watch over him before returning home." Zhao Zhen shrugged.

"No way?!" Xiao Ding opened his mouth wide and reached for his phone, "I'll ask his family about the situation."

Bai Yutang took a shower, wiped his hair and came down. He saw Zhao Zhen and Bai Chi, and knowing that the two of them came later, he asked, "How was the airport when you guys came back?"

Bai Chi told him about what had just happened...

Bai Yutang frowned, and Gongsun and Zhan Zhao both curiously came over, "A dry corpse?!"

"Strange."

At this time, Xiao Ding came back from his phone call, "I called Old Meng, his wife answered and said that he was fine after being checked at the hospital, and that he has no history of mental illness. Old Meng doesn't know what happened to him just now, he's not quite sure if he really saw it or hallucinated it."

"Definitely a hallucination." Zhao Zhen said, "I didn't see if there was a person lying on the back window, but he said that he hit a small child and that absolutely did not happen."

"That's right!" Bai Chi nodded, "This early in the morning, why would there be a small child on the main road."

"Then he hallucinated for no reason?" Gongsun frowned, "It can't be that there's something going on in his head, right? Have him do a thorough check."

Xiao Ding nodded, "He's being checked, Old Meng said that he might have encountered an evil spirit."

"Encountered an evil spirit.?!" Xiao Bai Chi's ears perked up. Bai Yutang shook his head, blew dry his hair and decided to go to bed.

Gongsun and Zhan Zhao, on the other hand, started discussing the possibility of encountering an evil spirit..

......

After a night of silence, the next day, Bao Sir sent a message to all the police officers who had finished their holidays, telling the crowd to adjust and go to work in two days, so... the crowd that had returned from their holidays gathered for dinner first.

Having enjoyed a long holiday, the crowd was in good spirits and gathered to exchange various gifts, and in the meantime, they exchanged stories about their travels.

A large group of girls gathered together to chatter and discuss something, and were quite lively. Another thing that was worth celebrating was that SCI's only bachelor, Jiang Ping, had also found a home. The young doctor, He Ying, ended up taking this nerdy prospect, and now the only one left who didn't have an owner yet was Bao Zheng.

While everyone was considering whether or not to find a wife for Bao Zheng, the door was pushed open and Bao Zheng wandered in with a bag.

Bao Zheng was carrying a big bag of bread, which seemed to be from the new bakery downstairs in his house. It tasted great, so he brought some for the crowd to try. The crowd once again sympathised... the great old man gnawing on bread every day, it's so miserable ah, they need to quickly find someone to give him something to do ah.

Bao Zheng felt that the atmosphere was quite strange. Gnawing on a skewer of barbecue meat he asked in disbelief, "What is it?"

The crowd looked at the sky.

Zhan Zhao was quite curious about yesterday's case, so he held a portion of fried noodles and came over to Bao Zheng's side, "Bao Sir, how's that case at the airport going?"

"Airport? Are you talking about the Wheel of Caleb case or the reporter jumping off the building case?" Bao Zheng asked.

"Aren't the two cases related?" Zhan Zhao asked tentatively.

Bao Zheng laughed and asked in return, "Why do you think they are related?"

Zhan Zhao narrowed his eyes – unexpectedly, he was speaking in an official tone.

Bao Zheng paused for a moment as he chewed on a skewer, and said, "This case at the airport has indeed developed somewhat strangely. "

"What do you mean?" Zhan Zhao was curious, and Gongsun also came over.

"That reporter called Zhang Yang, he had some photos captured in the memory card of his camera." Bao Zheng said, "They should have been taken before he died, right in the bathroom... very much like paranormal photos."

"Paranormal?" Everyone looked over curiously.

Luo Yang asked curiously, "Does paranormal mean that you've encountered a ghost?"

Bao Zheng touched his cell phone and said, "I took a picture of it this morning over at the homicide unit."

Everyone wanted to see it.

Bao Zheng covered his phone and cautioned, "It's a bit scary."

Everyone looked to the sky, wanting to see it even more.

Bao Zheng then handed the phone to Zhan Zhao and reached for a piece of roasted corn.

Zhan Zhao clicked on the photos...

In the first picture, next to the sink in the bathroom, there was a person lying on his back, rinsing his head with water from the tap... This person had a weird feeling, he was wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages, his body was dried out, and his skin was waxy and wrinkled with an air-dried look.

It was a pity that the face was not too visible, probably due to the fact that Zhang Yang's camera was not held very steadily.

After that, Zhang Yang took several shots in a row, basically of the strange man washing with water, slapping his face and then drinking the water.

Suddenly... the man turned his face and Zhang Yang got a close-up of the front.

"Wow..."

The crowd couldn't help but let out a gasp – because the face that turned to Zhang Yang was wrinkled like the face of a dry corpse, with two holes in its black face.

"This is a make-up effect, right?" Bai Chi was so shocked that his hairs stood up in a cold sweat.

As Zhan Zhao continued to scroll through, he saw that the man suddenly rushed towards Zhang Yang, followed by one shot that was blurred, and it was unknown what had happened.

Another one, the angle of the photo seemed to be taken from the ground upwards in a tilted shot. Only two bandaged feet were photographed, but the location of the shot had become the inside of a stall

"Zhang Yang was thrown into a stall after he caught him, right?" Bai Yutang surmised the angle, "He was still pressing the camera after falling on the floor?"

"It's an instinct." Zhan Zhao said, "At this moment, Zhang Yang's adrenaline surge was probably about the same as winning five million. All he wanted was to film this scene, he'd be rich if it made tomorrow's headlines... He was probably still drawing up the headlines in his head, and didn't have the time to think about whether there was any danger or not."

The next few photos were very blurry, but one could see that the dry body seemed to be attacking Zhang Yang, and after that, there were no more photos.

"He was attacked before escaping to the window?" Bai Yutang frowned.

"This is also instinct." Zhang Zhao nodded, "I guess the door was locked by that person, he had no way to escape and felt that he was in extreme danger, so he prepared to jump out of the window. It's only a pity that when he looked down... it was tragic."

Bai Chi frowned, "Is it really a dry corpse that made him like this? Then the Wheel of Caleb really came back to life?"

Bai Yutang looked through the photos, zooming in for a closer look, and finally found a detail in the photo that captured the dry corpse's feet. He showed it to Zhan Zhao, who saw that on the bandage wrapped around the leg, there was a blue stamp that resembled a seal.

Zhan Zhao squinted at it and said, "It's the Romanian Museum's stamp."

"This bandage is to facilitate the protection of that dry corpse when it's being carried." Bao Zheng said, "That group of archaeologists or whatever has already identified it."

After Zhao Zhen looked at the photo, everyone asked him – are there any flaws?

Zhao Zhen slightly shrugged and said, "It's possible that someone could have faked it. Putting on make-up and wearing contacts, it's very easy to create this effect. Nowadays, make-up is very developed, and putting on dry corpse make-up is a basic subject for make-up artists."

Bao Zheng asked, "So it's make-up?"

Zhao Zhen shrugged, "That I don't know, it might be real, the world is full of strange things."

Everyone squinted at him – saying that was the same as not saying anything.

"Speaking of dry corpses."

At this moment, Chen Jiayi ran over and handed out film tickets to the crowd.

The crowd looked at the title of the film – The Last Night.

"What is it?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

Qi Le raised an eyebrow, "The premiere of a new film, you're all invited to see it."

"A horror film?" Gongsun was curious.

"That's right, the lineup is impressive!" The twins came over, "Our company invested in it."

Bai Yutang probably hadn't seen a film in years, so he took the film ticket and asked, "Is it profitable to make horror films these days?"

"It doesn't matter what kind of film you make, the most important thing is to have stars and buzz." Xiao Ding looked like a profiteer when he talked about business, "Jiang Nan, Jiayi plus topic king Xu Lie, as well as Lin Ruo's company to do the special effects, Qi Le's band to do the music, plus the great magician..." as he said this, he pointed at Zhao Zhen, "a friendly cameo."

Bai Chi looked at Zhao Zhen curiously, which meant – did you do any filming?

Zhao Zhen shrugged his shoulders, "Just performed as a magician in my own character, it wasn't difficult."

"Xu Lie... I've heard that name before." Bai Yutang thought for a moment, "Is he the one who used a firecracker to blow up a reporter?"

"Oh! A'Lie is really famous, surprisingly even you who doesn't care about entertainment knows him." The twins felt relieved.

"Blowing up a reporter with firecrackers?" Gongsun was curious.

"Xu Lie is crazy." Chen Yu said, "That time he entrusted my brother's company with the firework effects for his concert. Later, when a reporter snuck into the concert site for a sneak peek, Xu Lie quietly ordered a string of firecrackers to be stuffed into that reporter's trousers..."

The corners of everyone's mouth twitched – this...

"What's this, this guy's a ferocious person!" Qi Le shook her head, "One day, a thief slipped into his house to steal something and was blocked by him. He tied the person up and hung him outside the window to wait for the police to come to arrest him, and his house was on the twenty-seventh floor ah. He made that thief admit his mistake and that thief argued with him. Later, Xu Lie took him in as an assistant, and he so coincidentally has the surname Lou, so we all called him Lou Waigua." (Angel: Lou Waigua means to hang outside the window.) 

"Pfft..." Everyone wanted to laugh a little, but it's just hanging from the building.

Bai Yutang was a bit curious, "You guys still signed him if he's so troublesome?"

"He's popular!" The twins raised an eyebrow, "Big Brother thinks he's good! This kid used to be a Muay Thai boxer, and he sings rock in an underground band on the side, he has a good voice! His last concert with Qi Le and the girls made the company a fortune, he's also talented in acting, he's Jiang Nan's godson."

Bai Yutang raised an eyebrow. The premiere was tonight, there wasn't much going on anyway.

Zhan Zhao roughly read the plot synopsis of the film, "Oh? Is it a psychological problem in the end?"

"Yes!" Chen Jiayi nodded.

"Psychological problems..." Zhan Zhao gently stroked his chin, then tilted his head to think.

Bai Yutang placed a grilled chicken wing on his plate, "What did you think of now?"

"Hmm?" Zhan Zhao seemed to have just come back to his senses, scratching his head, and continued to gnaw on the chicken wings.

The crowd ate dinner and went out in the evening as a group to support Chen Jiayi and the girls' new work.

Today's horror films all use 3D technology, and this one was decently well made. It showed Xu Lie as the male lead pursuing Jiayi as the female lead, but it turns out that the female lead has a very eerie mother, played by Jiang Nan.

The male lead later discovers that either the female lead or her mother is dead, but can't tell which one it is. After encountering a series of horrific events, he realises that he's got a neurological problem and has already killed both the female lead and her mother, and has been talking to the corpses the whole time.

The 3D horror film naturally had extraordinary effects, and Lin Ruo's company's technical team deserved to be world-class, scaring many of the audience in the room into letting out ghostly screams, and Bai Chi was also successfully scared.

Zhan Zhao and Gongsun looked very excited, but Bai Yutang fell asleep. Bai Jintang yawned, if he was not the boss of the company and had to give some face, he would also have liked to sleep, but fortunately he was wearing glasses and was inconspicuous.

When the film ended, the crowd took off their 3D glasses, and Zhan Zhao helplessly nudged Bai Yutang awake.

Bai Yutang was sleepy and rubbed his neck.

Zhan Zhao crossed his arms and asked him, "What do you think, Captain Bai?"

"Hmm?" Bai Yutang sat up, "Well, the chair is comfortable."

Zhan Zhao held his forehead, to what extent was this person's sense of fear lacking.

At this moment, some commotion could be heard from the audience at the back, followed by screams in all directions.

Bai Yutang instinctively looked around, and Zhan Zhao tugged at him, pointing to the front.

Bai Yutang turned around, only to realise that it was the main cast that had made their entrance, especially Xu Lie, who was the last one to walk up, and the screams were ear-piercing.

The crowd observed. He was quite handsome, tall and thin, and very tough looking. His appearance was not that of a young man with creamy skin, his skin was bronzed, his features were three-dimensional, and he had short hair, which made him look quite sharp.

Xu Lie yawned as he walked, apparently also just having woken up from a nap.

Bai Yutang looked at the time, it was almost half past ten in the evening.

The creators took turns to greet the audience with a microphone, and at this time... suddenly, the door on the side was pushed open, and the lights came on.

Bai Yutang looked over and saw a group of people walk in.

The twins initially raised an eyebrow, wondering who are they? Wrecking the venue? But once they thought about it, they thought it was impossible. Looking closely... they all had IDs, police?

Bai Yutang instantly recognised that the one walking at the front was Ai Hu, and was a little curious.

Ai Hu trotted onto the stage in a couple of steps, walked up to Xu Lie and showed his ID, "Xu Lie, you are suspected of committing a murder, please go back with us to cooperate with the investigation."

Xu Lie looked confused, "Ah?"

Bai Jintang looked at the twins.

The twins shrugged and shook their heads, indicating that they didn't know what was going on either.

Bai Yutang rubbed his chin.

When Xu Lie was taken away, Bao Zheng asked Ai Hu about the situation.

Ai Hu says, "A body was found in Xu Lie's car."

Everyone frowned.

Jiang Nan asked, "Which car?"

"Yellow Porsche."

Jiang Nan shook her head, "Have you guys checked carefully, Xu Lie's car has been broken down for a long time, it's been parked in the car park downstairs without being driven, it probably can't even be started."

Xu Lie's assistant also nodded, "Yeah, the yellow one has been scrapped for a long time."

Ai Hu nodded, "We know, but the body was found in his car, he needs to cooperate with the investigation. If he is ruled out of suspicion, we will let him go."

There was no objection from the group, the police had a process for handling cases.

But now this film could be considered a hit, and the headline of the paper the next day was – the protagonist was arrested on the day of the premiere.

The twins looked at the soaring box office, and felt that a door to a new world had opened, it turned out that you could also advertise in this way.

But soon, Xu Lie's suspicions were ruled out and he was released.

His fans were in an uproar, wanting the police to apologise and compensate Xu Lie for the loss of his reputation. Fortunately, Bai Jintang has a good relationship with the police, so the company naturally would not pursue the matter, and the media interviewed Xu Lie, who was indifferent to it himself.

As for SCI, on the first day of their return to work, Ai Hu transferred the case of the corpse hidden in the car to the SCI crowd.

"Serial murder case?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

"I don't know if it's serial or not, but we found a video." Ai Hu said, "There were no cameras near the yellow car at the time, so we directly arrested Xu Lie without finding evidence. But by such a coincidence, the owner of a car in front of his had installed a dash cam in his car, and the camera just happened to capture this footage. By the way, the one who died was one of the building's occupants, his car happened to be parked near the yellow car, so it can be said that it was an unnecessary disaster."

The crowd was curious and watched that video.

They saw a black car drive up in the dimly lit underground parking lot and park in a space next to the yellow car.

A man got out of the car. He seemed to see something next to the yellow car, so he walked over to take a look, and then he was seen turning around and running... And just in the moment of his escape, something behind him pounced, grabbed him by the head, and dragged him into a dark corner.

The scene was so shocking and bizarre that the SCI crowd, who had seen a lot of things, had their mouths open and could not speak.

‿︵‿︵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 30, 2023 by Angel

Edited: November 23, 2023 by Angel