S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 125

The Murderer Who Returned From Hell 24 – Clean-Up Plan

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Bai Yutang took the car keys and hurried to the underground garage to get the car, ready to meet up with Zhan Zhao and the others.

Zhan Zhao told him that the SWAT team was using heat sensors to sweep the "apple orchard”. Due to the large area and the possibility of tunnels as well as the tight surveillance system outside, this clean-up operation was very difficult. The number of SWAT officers and their equipment also needed to be replenished, so Bao Zheng asked Bai Yutang to personally take command and lead the men into the orchard.

Bai Yutang opened the car door while asking Zhan Zhao, "What about radiation?"

Zhan Zhao said, "We've asked experts to test it, and so far all the values are quite normal."

Bai Yutang nodded and was about to get into the car when he saw the distant elevator door open and a young forensic doctor in a white coat ran out.

This forensic doctor was one of Lao Yang's two interns, Bai Yutang had seen him at the SCI office before, he was very lively and talkative.

That forensic doctor was obviously running down to chase Bai Yutang, and when he saw him about to get into the car, he hurriedly shouted, "Captain Bai, wait a minute!"

Bai Yutang just stood at the door of the car waiting for him.

The young forensic doctor ran up to him, gasping for breath as he handed him something he had in his hand, "Forensic Doctor Yang asked me to give it to you, it was wrapped around Cheng Mu's elbow."

Bai Yutang reached out and took it. He saw that it was a long hemp rope, and on the rope, there was a pendant hanging, shaped like a key. It looked childish, somewhat like the kind of small key that children used to play with in their piggy banks, and it was already a bit rusty.

Bai Yutang asked that young forensic doctor, "What is this?"

The young forensic doctor shook his head and said, "It looks like it's from some sort of toy lock, or maybe a wind-up spring."

“Wind-up spring?" Bai Yutang was curious.

"Didn't you play with them when you were a child?" The young forensic doctor asked, "It's like one of those wind-up frogs, you use this to turn the screw in the mouth and then the frog will bounce forward when you put it on the ground."

Bai Yutang thought about it, he didn't have time to study how this thing worked, but Cheng Mu didn't have anything on him, just this. It probably had some kind of important use, that's why Forensic Doctor Yang asked his assistant to send it over to him.

Bai Yutang thanked that young forensic doctor and was about to get into the car.

That young forensic doctor seemed to have something else he wanted to say.

As Bai Yutang started the car, he saw in the rearview mirror that he was about to speak, so he asked, "Something else?"

"Uh..." the young forensic doctor hesitated for a moment, then moved over to Bai Yutang's car window and asked, "I know that your operation is a covert operation, but I seem to have heard you mention the apple orchard just now, right?"

Bai Yutang froze slightly and nodded, “Mhmm."

The young forensic doctor reached out, took out a wallet from his pocket, opened it and showed Bai Yutang a picture inside it.

Bai Yutang glanced at the picture, and saw that it was a photo of two young men, one of which was the young forensic doctor himself, and the other was about the same age as him, a freckle-faced young boy. Both were wearing black graduation robes and appeared to be classmates.

Bai Yutang looked at him in confusion.

"This is my classmate and best friend that I grew up with. After we graduated from university, I went to medical graduate school and he transferred to the biology department..."

Bai Yutang looked at the time and said, "The point."

The young forensic doctor opened his mouth and gathered his courage, "Can I come with you? I'll tell you on the way."

Bai Yutang told him to get in the car.

The car started and drove quickly towards the suburbs.

The young forensic doctor seized the opportunity and told Bai Yutang, "He's a great student, he was spotted by a large bio-pharmaceutical factory when he was in graduate school, and has a bright future ahead of him. However, a while ago he sent me a strange email, saying that he had discovered a secret that could get him killed, and asked if I had any police officers I knew and trusted."

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "What happened to him?"

"He didn't say in his email. I called him, but no one answered, and when I went to his house to look for him, his mother said that he had left the country and hadn't come back for a long time." The young forensic doctor said, "Last night, I received a phone call from him. He seemed to be very scared and asked me to think of ways to save him, and that he's in great danger. I asked him where he was, and he said he was in an apple orchard on the outskirts of S City."

Bai Yutang was a little surprised.

"But I didn't know any apple orchards at that time. I was still thinking about where they grew apples in the outskirts of S City, but he said that he would call me again when he had the chance and asked me to find a trusted police officer first." The young forensic doctor was obviously worried, "I just heard you mention an apple orchard when you answered the phone in the autopsy room, so..."

Bai Yutang nodded and asked, "Do you know what your friend is working on? Do you usually keep in touch?"

"Yes." The young forensic doctor said, "He did mention that he was researching some new drug, but he didn't say much, and the opportunities to meet up have been rather rare lately. By the way! He really likes watching a film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

Bai Yutang fought a blank stare, he never had much of an idea about films, but hearing the name, he asked, "A sci-fi film?"

"Simply put, it's about a biomedical scientist who used monkeys for experiments in order to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease, and then the monkeys evolved human intelligence and began to fight against humans."

The corner of Bai Yutang's mouth twitched, were the recent films so strange?

The young forensic doctor looked at Bai Yutang's expression and tentatively asked, "Captain Bai, you haven't seen it, have you? So out of touch?"

"Ahem." Bai Yutang drove the car into the suburbs, "Continue talking about that friend of yours."

"Oh." The young forensic doctor continued, "That time he came to my house, he happened to see the disc for Rise of the Planet of the Apes that I had placed on the table, so he took it and said 'There's actually an insurmountable divide between imagination and reality.'"

Bai Yutang had already seen Zhan Zhao and their command vehicle in front of him, and asked, "What does that mean?"

"He said with great emotion at the time that mankind simply couldn't create a monkey as highly intelligent and at the same time thoughtful as Caesar." The young forensic doctor recalled, "Only killing robots can be created, and no creature in this world can defeat humans because humans are more evil than any animal."

Bai Yutang parked his car next to the command car. Zhan Zhao had already got out of the command car. He noticed that there was someone in the passenger seat of Bai Yutang's car, and wondered – Wasn't this the little intern next to Forensic Doctor Yang downstairs?

Bai Yutang asked the intern, "What's your name?"

The intern looked at the sky, Captain Bai really couldn't remember the intern's name, "Wang Xiatian."

Bai Yutang asked again, "What about that classmate of yours?"

"Wen Dongtian."

Bai Yutang didn't think he should laugh, but he still found it funny, one was summer and one was winter.

The two got out of the car.

Zhan Zhao came over and Bai Yutang roughly told him what the young forensic doctor had said.

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin and asked, "Which pharmaceutical company does that friend of yours belong to?"

"A very large one, it seems to be called something like Roman Pharmaceuticals." Wang Xiatian said.

Zhan Zhao glanced at Bai Yutang, and Bai Yutang frowned. It should be that Roman F. Husky's business, that winter classmate fell into the wolf's den.

"Killing machine..." Zhan Zhao pondered for a moment and asked Wang Xiatian, "Is your friend smart?"

Wang Xiatian nodded his head, "He has an IQ of a hundred sixty-three."

"Oh..." Zhan Zhao nodded, "How clever minded is he usually?"

Wang Xiatian tilted his head.

"For example, is he witty, is he easy to be cheated, is he mature when dealing with things, and so on." Zhan Zhao asked.

Wang Xiatian then nodded, "He's very capable, not the nerdy type, and very cunning, so when he called for help I thought that maybe things were more serious."

"Has he sent you any emails or text messages recently?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Yes." The young forensic doctor took out his cell phone.

Bai Yutang took a look at that cell phone and couldn't help but frown. This cell phone was so huge that it was not far from the sole of a shoe, and the phone case was Chi the cat... Nowadays, all young boys are so girly...

The young forensic doctor opened the email on his cell phone, "This is the last email he sent me, there have been no messages recently."

"Were there any before?" Zhan Zhao pursued, "Did he send you any symbols, or emoticons, or anything like that?"

Wang Xiatian froze and said, "Oh... he sent me an email, it was like a messy code."

Zhan Zhao told him to open it.

"It was a long time ago, I remember it was..." Wang Xiatian flipped to that email and clicked on it to show it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow when he took it and reached out to pat the young boy's head, "You must have an IQ below a hundred sixty-three, right?"

The corners of Wang Xiatian's mouth twitched – He obviously had pride, but he had always viewed Zhan Zhao as a godly idol, so being patted on the head was considered an honour.

Zhan Zhao called for Bai Chi, "Chi Chi."

Bai Chi ran out from the car.

Zhan Zhao gave him his cell phone.

Bai Chi took it and looked at it, "This is a three-dimensional route map!"

Wang Xiatian's brows knitted into a knot – Where did he see that it was a three-dimensional image?

Zhan Zhao instructed Bai Chi, "Have Jiang Ping make a rendering as soon as possible."

"Oh!" Bai Chi ran back with his cell phone, and after Jiang Ping looked at the picture, he began to tap away at the keyboard. The two teamed up without knowing what they were tinkering with.

Bai Yutang arrived at the SWAT team's command vehicle. Zhang Xiaofei of the SWAT team was worthy of his military background, he had built a simple wartime command shelter, and sat inside with Bao Zheng checking out the map.

“How is it?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Easy to defend, hard to attack." Xiaofei didn't look too confident, "The external structure of this place is simple, with no cover, it's certain that the articles are all underground. Just now I used the sound transmission equipment to investigate, what is certain is that the underground structure is complicated. We are not familiar with the terrain, it's easy to scare the snakes by rashly barging in, moreover, even if we enter the underground, we may miss the target, or even fall into a trap."

"But what if we know the internal structure map?"

At this moment, Zhan Zhao's voice came from the side.

The crowd looked up and saw that Zhan Zhao placed a freshly printed, three-dimensional official route map with not yet dry ink in front of the crowd.

Xiaofei was surprised and brought it over to look, "This is..."

Zhan Zhao placed Wang Xiatian's cell phone on the table, "It seems that there is a quick-witted kid with superior intellect who got mixed up in the wolf's den. He probably foresaw that there was danger, so he marked down the route map and sent a garbled email to his brother, just in case."

Xiaofei quickly compared the distance and terrain and nodded, "It roughly fits with this apple orchard, it's great to have a topographical map!"

"How do you plan to attack?"

Xiaofei said, "According to the topographical map, this place has four exits from the underground besides the one entrance above, all of which are in very hidden places! The builder's intention should be that once there is an invasion of the ground entrance, those inside will be able to quickly evacuate from the four exits. What we need to do is to split up our troops and enter through the four exits, then send a team of people to guard the entrance's location, and we'll be able to do a clean sweep!"

Bai Yutang nodded, feeling that the proposal was good.

Xiaofei sent a few SWAT team members to survey the area first, and sure enough, there were indeed four hidden exits, all with cameras and tight security measures nearby.

"This topographical map should be correct." Xiaofei celebrated, "Luckily we have this map, otherwise we might have suffered heavy losses."

"How?" Bai Yutang was curious.

"The person who designed this underground site should have a military background, and may even have experience in actual combat, this is complete with a wartime underground command post, with various routes clearly defined." Xiaofei said with interest, "I have studied the structure of some underground command posts from World War II, and they are very similar to this. Especially some command posts with special functions, such as weapons development, biological experiments and whatnot, they all have this kind of structure and distribution. It roughly indicates where the defending soldiers are, where the commanders are, where the researchers are, and so on."

Xiaofei said while drawing a circle, "This young man has amazing intelligence ah, able to record the tunnels completely through a few lines."

On the side, Wang Xiatian nodded, "The academic master is here... and he's super good at playing games, especially those kinds of simulated war games."

Thus, Bai Yutang gathered the crowd and divided them into four groups, with Bai Yutang + Zhang Long, Luo Tian + Qin Ou, Zhao Hu + Ma Han, and Xiaofei + Wang Chao each leading a fifteen-member elite SWAT squad to enter through the four exits. Bao Zheng led the remaining police force of nearly a hundred, as well as the criminal police team that came to cooperate with them to guard the entrance together and capture the escaped fish in one fell swoop.

When everyone had divided up the work and prepared their equipment, news came from Jiang Ping's side, "I've successfully hacked into the entire building's computer system, the cameras have been replaced by intrinsic lenses, and I'll cut off the power supply after you guys break in."

Bai Yutang and the others took their night-vision goggles, armed themselves and synched their watches.

Bao Zheng gave the order – The purge begins!

‿︵‿︵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 24, 2023 by Angel

Edited: January 2, 2024 by Angel