S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 15

Witness of the Three Murderers 15 – Meditation and Root System

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Bai Yutang and the others found an odd building by the deserted highway in the middle of nowhere by tracking the whereabouts of the brown-tipped black butterfly that had been fitted with a locator.

The environment at this moment was fittingly dark and windy. The mansion in the distance had the atmosphere of a haunted mansion no matter how you looked at it, and from this viewpoint, the mansion wasn't small.

At this time, the mansion was dark and there was no light coming out, so it could not be determined whether there were people inside, whether it was a private house or an abandoned house. Even if the butterfly flew in, they couldn't trespass just because a butterfly flew into the mansion, but the existence of this mansion was indeed out of the ordinary.

Jiang Ping investigated the information on the residents in this area and said to Bai Yutang, "Captain, this forest area is privately owned and there aren't any residents for several miles, apart from an old factory in the distance that has already closed down."

Bai Yutang frowned, while Zhan Zhao was puzzled, "Forest area? Where is there a forest here? The trees have all been cut down."

"Is this place part of the outskirts of S City?" Bai Yutang asked.

"It isn't, it's already out of S City. It belongs to the outskirts of K City, but it's a distant suburb. This area is all under a long-term lease as forest land." Jiang Ping said, "This land was leased thirty years ago to a businessman named Xu Mei, and this person emigrated to Mexico twenty years ago."

Bai Yutang frowned, "How long is the lease for this piece of land?"

"A fifty-year lease, the rent is quite cheap." Jiang Ping said, "This road is nearly abandoned, it should be considered off the beaten path."

Everyone looked through the car window again at how the lonely house looked eerie under the moonlight in the distance.

"That Xu Mei, how old is he?"

At this time, Zhao Jue suddenly opened his mouth and asked.

"Well, according to the identity information, sixty-five years old." Jiang Ping replied.

Zhao Jue slightly raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything more. He just nodded, his fingers gently stroking his chin as if he was calculating something.

"Why don't we go and take a look!" Zhan Zhao was excited.

Gongsun was also interested.

Bai Yutang looked breathlessly at the two people with the lowest strength value in the entire SCI but with the biggest guts and the greatest desire to see the world in chaos, and said, "I'll go and take a look first, you two wait here for me."

After saying that, Bai Yutang got out of the car. Originally, he wanted to bring Luo Tian along with him, but Ma Han came over to stop him, "You can't go over like this."

Bai Yutang looked at him with some confusion.

Ma Han said, "Look at the ground."

Everyone looked at the ground... Just now, everyone had noticed that even though this area was called a forest area, almost all the trees had been cut down, leaving behind one tree stump after another.

Zhao Hu asked, "Ai Ma, there won't be landmines, right?"

Everyone looked at him speechlessly.

Qin Ou stroked his chin as he observed the ground, "Not necessarily."

Bai Yutang probably also understood what Ma Han was worried about, "Do you think the trees were cut down on purpose so that there would be no cover?"

"Walking through like this, the people on the second floor, not to mention guns, could hit the people below with a slingshot, you'd practically be a living target." Ma Han said, "It's too risky."

"Then just drive there by car?" Zhan Zhao, who had come out at some point, suggested.

"What if there are anti-tank mines?" Zhao Hu felt that there was a trap any way he looked at it.

The crowd looked at him speechlessly, and Ma Han smoothly knocked him on the head – Anti-tank your ass!

Bai Yutang also frowned. If everyone rushed over there and nothing happened, it would be fine, but if there was an accident, Bao Sir would tear him apart when he got back...

While the crowd was deliberating, they saw Zhao Jue poking his head out of the car door and saying, "Ai, that brat ran away."

The crowd froze, they saw that a black shadow jumped out of the car window and flew to the "haunted mansion". Wasn't that Chen Xiaofei, who had just been captured by them?

Bai Yutang and Luo Tian hurriedly chased, and Zhan Zhao squinted his eyes at Zhao Jue – You actually didn't stop him!

Zhao Jue spread his hands, "He was quite excited to see the haunted mansion, after all, he's still a child." After saying that, he jumped down from the car and also skipped towards that mansion.

Zhan Zhao hurriedly followed.

Facts proved that the crowd's previous worries were all exaggerated, there were no snipers, slingshotters or the like ambushed in that mansion. The crowd smoothly arrived in front of that mansion's door, and the surveillance vehicle drove over and parked in the open area in front of the main door.

Bai Yutang was at the front door and caught Chen Xiaofei who was running fast. This person was a bit interesting, he didn't run away even after easily catching a chance, but ran towards the mansion.

Bai Yutang threw Chen Xiaofei to Qin Ou, which meant, watch over him.

Chen Xiaofei was lifted by his collar. He tilted his face, looking at the mansion.

Walking closer, the crowd finally saw the full picture of this lonely mansion...

The construction style of this mansion was rather strange, it was somewhat like a bell tower. The walls were very low, but the roof was very high. From the outside, there were only two floors. The main door was more than two people high, and there was a petal-shaped window on the top, affixed with colourful glass.

"This..." Zhan Zhao observed, "looks like a church."

"Mhmm, it's just missing a cross at the top, there you have it, that's how churches are built." Zhao Jue nodded.

Walking up the steps, there was a black wooden door, and a doorbell at the entrance.

Luo Tian pressed the doorbell... From inside the mansion came the ringing of the old electric bell. It was not clear if the house was empty or not, but the crowd could hear the clear echoes.

The electric bell rang for a long time, but no one answered the door.

Luo Tian banged on the door again, but still no one answered. Everyone looked at each other – It's an empty mansion, right?

Ma Han turned on the two searchlights on the roof of the surveillance vehicle.

Under the strong light, the crowd saw the whole picture of the mansion clearly. Although the mansion was dark, the walls had a very delicate texture, which looked like tree bark, and a rustic feeling came out. The main structure was wooden, and these days – wooden houses were rare.

"This is an old mansion." Zhao Jue stroked his chin and admired it, "It wasn't built recently, it was moved as a whole from somewhere else."

Zhan Zhao urged Bai Yutang, "Pry the door open and go in."

Bai Yutang thought for a moment and gestured to the door for Zhao Zhen, who had come over to watch the fun.

Zhao Zhen surveyed the door lock, took out two hairpin-like thin iron rods from his pocket, and started picking the lock.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han, and Zhang Long and Wang Chao split into two groups, circled the mansion, and after assembling at the back, they came back and told Bai Yutang that the mansion only had a big door at the front, with no backdoor, and the back was like an ancient fortress, with walls that were old and high. There was a single window at the top, and they all suspected that there was something wrong with the lighting of the mansion.

Zhao Zhen didn't spend much time picking the lock and said, "An old lock, you don't see many of them in this era."

Bai Yutang and Luo Tian reached out, one on each side, and pushed the huge wooden doors open.

Behind them, Zhao Hu and Ma Han held a gun in one hand and a powerful flashlight in the other, shining towards the doorway.

The moment the doors were opened, a musty smell hit their faces.

Everyone couldn't help but frown. This was the problem with wooden-framed houses, it was easy to develop this musty smell due to humidity, especially if it had been unoccupied for a long time.

Qin Ou was holding the less-than-honest Chen Xiaofei in the back. This teenager showed extreme curiosity towards this mansion for some unknown reason.

Zhan Zhao observed him for a moment and felt that... he should know something. At least with regard to this mansion, Chen Xiaofei would have much more information than them.

The light shone into the mansion, and what met their eyes was a wall full of photographs.

The crowd was shocked by this sudden visual impact, they froze in the doorway and could not speak. The scene was also a little... scary.

The crowd didn't notice what kind of furniture was inside the mansion because the wall was too attractive to the attention of people!

The wall directly opposite the main door went all the way up to the roof, there was no separation, and the wall was very intact. And on this wall, there were picture frames as big as an A3 piece of paper hanging all over the place, and there were photos in each frame.

What was most bizarre were these photos!

The ones hanging on the wall were not landscape photos or decorative paintings, but black-and-white photos, and they were black-and-white headshots. Each photo was a large face head-on, eyes as dead as ash, completely devoid of energy, staring straight in the direction of the door...

"Those aren't photographs."

At this time, Zhao Jue suddenly spoke.

Everyone froze.

Zhan Zhao searched the doorway and found something like a power switch.

Qin Ou flipped the electrical breaker. The crowd heard the sound of a generator operating and glanced at each other – There was electricity!

Zhan Zhao flipped the two power switches at the doorway... Instantly, the room lit up.

White light with a hint of blue illuminated the entire room. The impact of the wall of photographs did not diminish, and at the same time, the crowd understood the meaning of Zhao Jue's words – "not photographs".

These black and white pieces were portrait pencil drawings!

Bai Yutang frowned, "Isn't this an underworld portrait drawing?"

Zhan Zhao nodded. Underworld portrait drawings were portraits of the dead drawn by a specialised artist, which were meant to be placed in the mourning hall or pasted on the tombstones.

With his hands behind his back, Zhao Jue stood by the wall, tilting his face up and carefully viewing the paintings. As he did so, he smiled slightly, waving to the crowd and pointing to one of the drawings for them to see.

Zhan Zhao and the others looked over in the direction of Zhao Jue's finger and saw that it was a portrait of a middle-aged man.

"Huh?" Zhao Zhen was also stunned, "Isn't this Wu Hua?"

Everyone else was stunned... They had just captured Chen Xiaofei, who was pretending to be the Grim Reaper, at Wu Hua's wake, but why was Wu Hua's underworld portrait drawing hanging here?

At this time, Xiao Bai Chi quickly swept through the portraits and said, "These are all victims of accidental death cases! The victims of those cases we are investigating this time are all included."

Everyone frowned.

Gongsun rubbed his chin, "Aiya, so many familiar faces."

"What about those?"

Just as the crowd was staring at the photos in disbelief, they heard Zhao Zhen prompt, "Do you guys want to take a look behind you?"

The crowd, following his words, turned around in a unified manner and looked back... Once again, they were stunned.

They saw that on the opposing wall, that is, the wall where the door was located, there were two large trees.

It wasn't clear if those two trees were carved out or if they were just a tree split in two, one on each side and set symmetrically into the walls on either side of the door. The well-developed root systems, the decaying bark, the twisted branches and the yellowed leaves all penetrated the walls, half sealed in and half left outside with a realistic texture!

What was even more striking than those two trees with intact root systems was that both trees were covered with butterflies... all brown-tipped black butterflies.

Each butterfly was nailed to the tree by a long black nail, and a section of the nail was decorated with a simple image of a skeleton.

"Undead needles." Gongsun said.

Bai Yutang stared at those butterflies for a while and said to Zhang Long at the door, "Call Jiang Ping over."

Jiang Ping ran over from the surveillance vehicle with a tablet in his hand. He shivered in fear as he entered the door and quickly looked around.

Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping, "That butterfly, can you find it?"

"Oh, we can have that locator send out a signal." Jiang Ping said, pressing a few times on the tablet.

"Look!"

At this moment, Bai Chi reached out and pointed at a butterfly on a tree branch... Just then, they saw that the butterfly's wings were still gently twitching, and it seemed to be alive. The transparent patch on its body was glowing with a blue light, and right underneath that glittering piece of tape, there was a black nail...

Everyone froze.

Bai Yutang frowned.

Zhao Hu, Ma Han and the others made the same move, turning their faces around and looking in four different directions.

Gongsun also frowned, "Those nails, the butterflies couldn't have nailed them up there..."

"That is to say," Bai Yutang, at this moment, looked at the walls on both sides, "there are still people here."

There was a staircase leading to the second floor on the left and right sides of the mansion, it was very magnificent. There were no rooms on the ground floor, and on the second floor, there were three doors on each side, which meant that there were six rooms.

Just as the crowd split in two, ready to head upstairs, Chen Xiaofei suddenly muttered to himself, "Found it... I really found it."

Zhan Zhao looked at him in confusion, when his gaze was caught by one thing.

"Yutang." Zhan Zhao called out.

Bai Yutang turned around to look at him.

Zhan Zhao suddenly reached out and pointed at one of the open doors.

The crowd looked over in the direction of his finger and saw that Zhan Zhao was pointing at the left side of one of the two open doors, underneath the door that was resting against the wall.

Just see that through the doorway, there were two feet...

‿︵‿︵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: January 12, 2024 by Angel

Edited: March 24, 2024 by Angel