S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 116

The Murderer Who Returned From Hell 16 – Voice

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On the way back, Bai Yutang drove while Zhan Zhao took his tablet and had a good time learning about apple cultivation.

"Oh!" Zhan Zhao stroked his chin, "It turns out that an apple tree is not something that can blossom and bear fruit just by burying the seeds in the ground and watering and fertilising them, it also needs to be grafted."

Bai Yutang hadn't come into contact with knowledge of fruit tree cultivation and the like before, so hearing Zhan Zhao's words, he sighed in relief, "That means there's no danger of that kind of apple seed growing poisonous apples that then make their way into the market?"

Zhan Zhao carefully studied for a while and said, "But it's written here that apple seeds need to be bred, and then grafted with begonias after cultivating the buds."

Bai Yutang frowned, "Begonia? Aren't begonias flowers? The floppy kind, my mom even planted a bunch of them in the yard."

Zhan Zhao blinked, then searched, "Ah! That kind of floppy one is the autumn begonia."

"Autumn begonias? Begonias that grow in autumn?" Bai Yutang was puzzled, "This thing can be categorised into spring, summer, autumn and winter?"

"Begonias and autumn begonias are two different things!" Zhan Zhao corrected him, and then felt a lack of confidence, "Probably not the same kind..."

Bai Yutang looked at the sky, "Isn't grafting done directly with saplings?" Bai Yutang asked, "Didn't my mother plant plum blossoms that time by cutting a branch of a plum blossom and sticking it on the root of a peach tree? How do you graft apple seeds? Plant a sapling and then graft it?"

Zhan Zhao digested what Bai Yutang said and rubbed his chin, "Planting flowers turned out to be so violent!"

Bai Yutang didn't understand why the two of them were discussing gardening, "That kind of an apple tree, how many years will it take to bear fruit after being planted?"

Zhan Zhao continued to research, "Well, an apple tree can live for fifty years if planted properly, and start producing fruit from the third year onwards..."

Bai Yutang frowned, "Three years... If it was a seed three years ago, can it make an apple this year?"

"But..." Zhan Zhao said, "S City is by the sea, the climate is relatively hot and humid, it's not an ideal place to grow apples. Apples are usually planted in the north and prefer colder climates."

Bai Yutang sighed, after talking for half a day, they were still discussing the issue of apples.

When the car returned to the police station, they saw a bunch of reporters squatting under the building. Bai Yutang drove straight into the basement.

Zhan Zhao rested his chin and looked at the reporters in front of the building, "Speaking of which, how has this case developed in the public media now?"

"You can check and find out." Bai Yutang was also a bit curious as well.

Zhan Zhao checked the entertainment section of the major news sites and found that they were all headlines, and unfolded in the direction of Xu Lie bumping into ghosts in this bizarre divine development. Xu Lie has recently been very popular... in addition, the sight has brought about a provoked disaster.

"Photos of Xu Lie and Chen Mi going in and out together have been captured." Zhan Zhao flipped through the webpage, "Heh, they are in a good place, even walking Dunbu together."

"Didn't I tell them not to go out, why are they running around?" Bai Yutang was dissatisfied.

"Erm..." Zhan Zhao checked, "The latest information is that the two of them rushed to the police station early in the morning..."

As soon as Zhan Zhao's words fell, the two of them heard two dog barks.

"Am I hallucinating?" Bai Yutang stopped the car, and when Zhan Zhao opened the window, he saw a huge white mop of a dog appear outside the car window, sticking out its tongue and wagging its tail at him with a "heh heh heh".

"Hey, Dunbu, why are you here?" Zhan Zhao rubbed Dunbu's head.

Bai Yutang opened the door and got out of the car, and saw Xu Lie and Chen Mi getting out of the car as if they had just arrived. Zhan Zhao instantly realised why there were so many reporters at the entrance.

"What happened?" Bai Yutang asked.

Chen Mi was a bit helpless, but Xu Lie was excited, "There was a haunting last night!"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang frowned, "Haunting?"

"Super creepy!" Xu Lie followed Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao towards the elevator as he said, "First, the room's temperature control system suddenly went out of order, then the voltage was unstable, then the computer suddenly turned on by itself, and then there were the scary phone calls. The whole night was like a horror film!"

Bai Yutang frowned, "Last night?"

"Mhmm!" Xu Lie nodded.

Chen Mi added, "It's obvious that someone was playing a prank. The temperature control system and the computer should have been the result of a hacker." Saying this, he shook the hard drive and laptop in his hand, "That geek in your police station should be able to trace the hacker's trail."

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nodded. Sure enough – the busiest person in the police station was Jiang Ping!

"Why didn't you two call last night?" Zhan Zhao said, "So we could send someone over."

Xu Lie looked at Chen Mi.

Chen Mi said, "Because it was kinda fun... I wanted to see who was playing the ghost, moreover, there was always a police officer at the door, and the ghost didn't show up."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both a bit speechless. Sure enough, the bomb squad had nerves that were comparable to those of the forensic team.

Chen Mi took out a recorder from his suit pocket, turned it on, and gave it to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang to listen to, "Phone recording."

In the recording, there was a very noisy murmur, then the sound of a little girl crying, and then in the midst of the noise, a little girl's voice could be heard calling out, "Mommy".

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other.

Afterwards, the sound turned into screams and loud noises, like something was being smashed.

Overall, the entire audio sounded like a terrified little girl crying for her mother in the midst of abnormal chaos.

"Was this the only audio all night?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Chen Mi nodded, "It should be an audio clip being played over and over again. A total of five calls came in last night, and each time this clip was played, I recorded it all."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at him and Xu Lie, "You two didn't unplug the phone line?"

Xu Lie gave a shrug, "I even traced it, but unfortunately, the audio was shorter than thirty seconds each time, so I couldn't trace it."

"Even a tracker?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were surprised.

"State-of-the-art equipment, I have business dealings with the twins and we work well together." Chen Mi smiled.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked to the sky, just how extensive was Big Brother's business?

At this time, there was a ding and the elevator doors opened at SCI's floor.

Zhan Zhao suddenly stopped and said to Xu Lie, "Lend me your phone."

Xu Lie was puzzled, but still gave him the phone.

After Zhan Zhao punched in a phone number, he heard a "Hello?" from the other end.

Zhan Zhao turned the recording on and placed it next to the phone.

Afterwards, a "Holy shit!" was heard from Zhao Hu in the SCI office.

Zhan Zhao nodded, hung up the phone, and walked into the office with a smile on his face.

Chen Mi asked Bai Yutang with some confusion, "What's up with him?"

Bai Yutang thought for a moment, "Probably didn't sleep enough, so he is a little agitated after waking up."

Walking into the office, he saw Zhao Hu jumping around with the phone in his hand. When he saw that Zhan Zhao had come in, he was excited, "Dr. Zhan, I received a strange phone call..."

Before he finished his words, he saw Zhan Zhao holding the recorder and playing it.

Everyone's attention was drawn over.

The audio was about twenty-eight seconds long, and the whole thing was nothing but a cacophony. The little girl's cries tore at their hearts, especially the voice calling for her mother, which was very disturbing to the heart. In short, whoever caused such a terrified reaction from a little girl was unforgivable...

"Analyse this audio." Bai Yutang told Jiang Ping.

"I'll have someone from the forensics section do it." Jiang Ping copied out the audio and passed it to Old Wang, "The new set of audio analysis developed by the forensic department recently is super amazing."

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao walked behind Jiang Ping.

Jiang Ping had previously told the two that he might have found F, so the two desperately needed to know who this F was.

"I just checked the publication date of the magazine, and then found the rental of the billboard in this area during that time period. I found out that the person who rented the billboard was a local businessman called Fang You, and the advert was for exhibition promotion and culture." Jiang Ping pointed out some information to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao.

"Fang You's mobile phone number is the same as the first half of the billboard." Jiang Ping continued, "Leasing a billboard requires the registration of the corporate information. This Fang You is the owner of a cultural promotion company, here are the details, he may still be in S City at the moment."

Bai Yutang nodded and turned back to ask Zhao Hu and Ma Han to go find that Fang You.

As soon as he turned back, he realised that almost all of the SCI members were in the middle of visiting Dunbu.

"It really looks like a mop!"

"Can the eyes see like this?"

"Will it step on the hem of the skirt and fall down when it walks?"

"It's the first time I've seen it in real life, it's so cute!"

Bai Chi wrapped his arms around Dunbu for a photo, and even Ma Xin and Gongsun came to watch with their drinks.

Bai Yutang was somewhat helpless and whistled.

He then saw the SCI members and Dunbu raise their heads together and look at him, their movements highly consistent.

Bai Yutang was speechless, and hooked his finger at Zhao Hu and Ma Han. The two were about to go over when they saw Chen Mi suddenly walk over, he seemed to be attracted by the photo on Jiang Ping's computer screen.

After approaching, Chen Mi frowned as he moved closer to the screen to take a closer look, then reached out and pointed at Fang You, "I've seen this person before."

"I've seen him too."

As soon as Chen Mi's words fell, they heard another person speak from the behind, and it was a girl.

The crowd turned around and saw that it was Ma Xin.

Bai Yutang signalled for the two of them to come one by one.

Zhan Zhao then asked Chen Mi, "When did you meet him?"

"When I was a child." Chen Mi said, "I saw him once with my dad. The man's smile was quite scary, it felt like his face was fake, so I remember it very well."

"When you were a child, roughly how long ago was that?" Zhan Zhao asked, "How old were you?"

Chen Mi thought carefully, "When I was in my teens."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nodded, then asked Ma Xin, "What about you?"

"The day before yesterday."

"What?!" As Ma Xin's words left her mouth, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao were shocked.

"Where did you meet?" Ma Han asked Ma Xin, wondering how this girl could run into anything.

"I was shopping for shoes with Xiao Yu that day." Ma Xin said, "This man suddenly ran out, holding their band's album and asking Xiao Yu to sign it. This man's appearance was quite scary, his face was smiling but not smiling, and he came out of nowhere and scared us."

"Xiao Yu gave him an autograph?" Chen Mi asked with a frown.

"Mhmm." Ma Xin nodded, "That album was so sticky. After signing, he also wanted to take a picture, but he looked like a perverted fan, so I pulled Xiao Yu and ran away."

"Sticky?" Bai Yutang asked, "Plastic wrap?"

"Mhmm." Ma Xin nodded, "It's strange, Xiao Yu's fans are all young people, that uncle looked to be almost fifty years old, but quite trendy."

"Damn..." Chen Mi frowned, "What he wants is probably Xiao Yu's fingerprints and DNA information."

Ma Xin froze, then opened her mouth, "Ah!"

Gongsun knocked her on the head from the side, "What a waste, you are a top student in the forensic department, how can you not be alert at all."

Ma Xin was anxious, "What should we do? But what does he want those for? To do something bad?"

The others were also puzzled.

"Other than the F in the notebook from back then, did your dad ever mention anything else about Fang You?" Zhan Zhao asked Chen Mi.

Chen Mi shook his head, "No... we didn't spend much time together."

"It's imperative to find this Fang You first." Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping, who was rapidly tapping the computer keyboard and was looking for the address, "Can you find it?"

Jiang Ping said, "Well, his company's address doesn't exist anymore, it seems to be a shell company. But there's the address on his ID card, and it's quite close to the shopping mall Xin Xin mentioned where she ran into him with Chen Yu."

"He's been following Chen Yu for a while, right?" Zhao Hu asked, "How else would it be such a coincidence that he brought the album with him when he went shopping?"

Not necessarily." Zhan Zhao shook his head, "Qi Le and their band's albums are available for sale everywhere..." Saying this, Zhan Zhao asked Ma Xin, "Have they released a lot of albums?"

"Yes!" Ma Xin nodded.

"What's the name of the one he asked Chen Yu to sign?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

"Oh, it's called Mom." Ma Xin replied, "Because Le Le and Xiao Yu both don't have mothers, and the orphanage they sponsored before did some kind of investigation and found that many orphans were the result of young or even underage unwed mothers abandoning their little ones, they made a song for mothers to be brave and not to abandon their children no matter what. This album seems to have broken some kind of record in terms of sales. "

The crowd was inexplicably reminded of the recorded phone call from earlier.

"Actually..." Zhan Zhao seemed to be entangled in a problem, "it's hard to say which country this child is from."

Everyone nodded. In the world, the pronunciation of "mom" is the only one that exists in almost all the languages of the world, and no matter whether it's official or private, children can call their mothers in this way.

The crowd inexplicably thought of that Wife and Daughter sculpture again. Linking it to that production process, they felt that the clues of the case had an inexplicable sense of compatibility."

"Captain, there are preliminary results from the audio analysis side." Jiang Ping clicked on the video chat box, and the face of Old Wang from the forensic department appeared on the screen. Behind him were several young technical analysts, and as soon as the video was connected a female analyst screamed, "Ah! Xu Lie!"

The crowd turned around only to see Xu Lie, who had almost been forgotten and was sitting on the sofa with Dunbu in a daze.

"Ahem." Bai Yutang coughed, and the girl quickly shrank behind Old Wang, who reminded her, "Professional, be professional!"

"How's the audio?" Bai Yutang asked Old Wang.

"The first thing we can be sure of is that the audio is not synthesised."

Everyone frowned.

"That means there is indeed such a little girl crying in the chaos, right?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Yes, and we're analysing... This is the first layer of background sound extracted so far." Old Wang said, "It's far away and the sound isn't very clear, but you guys can listen to it."

After saying that, he clicked a button, "We've amplified it many times."

All of them turned their ears sideways, and they heard a muffled bang.

"What is it?" Zhao Hu tilted his head, "An artillery discharge?"

"It's an explosion." Chen Mi and Qin Ou spoke in unison, "And it's on a large scale..."

After the explosions rang out, a cacophony of voices could be heard coming from the area, with people shouting and others screaming. The language was not English, let alone Chinese.

"Romanian." Zhan Zhao said.

"What's being said?" Bai Yutang asked.

This time, without waiting for Zhan Zhao to help translate, Old Wang had already said, "This device has voice recognition and translation functions, the details of the shouting are here."

Saying that, he pressed the send button.

On the video, the general content of the noisy human voice speaking appeared – "Run... exploded, run!"

......

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao nodded, indicating that the machine translation was accurate.

"This is all that has been analysed so far." Old Wang said, "I'll contact you guys if there are any more discoveries." After saying that, he closed the chat channel.

"Explosions..." Jiang Ping began to search, "but usually other than explosions of the level of terrorist attacks or the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, or a meteorite hitting the earth or the Tunguska explosion and so on... it is difficult to find an official record of them."

"Check the era associated with the artist of Wife and Daughter, as well as the records of explosions near his residence." Zhan Zhao said.

Jiang Ping proceeded to tap on the computer.

Bai Yutang stood up, "Let's go find that F first and talk about the rest when we come back."

Zhan Zhao nodded and whispered a few more words to Bai Chi.

Afterwards, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao brought Ma Han and Zhao Hu, as well as Chen Mi, and rushed to the address where that Fang You was.

Xu Lie wanted to follow, but was kicked back on the grounds that – he attracted too much attention, so he should honestly wait in the police station.

Xu Lei held two cattle bones, one for Dunbu to chew and one to chew himself, while sighing.

On the side, Gongsun curiously asked Bai Chi, who was busy on the phone, "Chi Chi, what are you looking into?"

Bai Chi was quite helpless, "I'm looking for people from the orchard and flower market to ask, Brother just asked us to check where apples are grown in S City."

"Aren't apples grown in the north?" Ma Xin had just called the twins and asked them to send someone to protect Chen Yu, and when she walked in, she was hearing Bai Chi talking.

"Right." Bai Chi nodded, "The owners of those orchards all told me the same thing."

"S City also grows them."

At this time, Xu Lie suddenly interjected, "I know a place that grows a lot of apples."

Gongsun was curious, "Where?"

"The far north suburb of the city, super remote!" Xu Lie said, "We went to the mountains to film one time, and I was looking for a convenient place to go when I had an internal emergency, but as you know, there were too many reporters. Later, I found a very advanced glass room in the small building, and I went there to borrow a bathroom, but I couldn't find the entrance after a few laps and there were a lot of cameras all around, making it look like a prison or a high-tech research and development base. Finally I couldn't hold it back and had to solve it... in the bushes. But just when I was in the middle of it, coincidentally, the gate facing the bushes opened, and a jeep drove out. When the gate opened and closed, I saw a lot of glass houses at the back, with apple trees inside one after another."

"Are you sure they were apple trees?" Gongsun frowned.

"Yes, Xiao Luo is from the north, his family has a contracted orchard specialised in growing apples. He took a look and said to me, what kind of people are really out there these days ah, growing an apple is not making an Apple computer, but they still have such a high tech facility, can they grow iPhones and iPads ah?"

Everyone frowned.

Gongsun was curious, "Developing a new breed of apple?"

Jiang Ping began to search, and quickly turned back and said, "The northern suburb of S City does not have a high-tech park, much less an experimental base for agricultural products. It is a mountainous area, and it is cheaply contracted out to local farmers to grow trees, and is probably subcontracted, but it is impossible for such an advanced experimental base to be unregistered."

Everyone touched their chin. At this time, Bao Sir walked through the door. While walking, he nibbled on an apple and carried a bag in his hand, which was rounded with ten or so apples.

Entering the door, Bao Zheng asked, "How is the case?"

The crowd looked up together, silently looking at the apple in his hand.

"Do you want to eat one?" Bao Zheng asked, "I just bought them, they're so sweet."

The corners of everyone's mouths twitched, and at this time, they only had one thought – they couldn't love apples anymore, what should they do!

‿︵‿︵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: December 4, 2023 by Angel

Edited: December 7, 2023 by Angel