S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 9

Witness of the Three Murderers 09 – Chrysalis

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Zhang Yu, who came to the police station to help out as a consultant, happened to see the portrait of the "Grim Reaper" that appeared at the crime scene ten years ago which Gongsun had placed on the autopsy table, and the result provided a shocking clue – Zhang Yu had seen this "Grim Reaper" more than once, and the most recent time was at the beginning of this year.

Zhang Yu was "dragged" back to the SCI office by Zhan Zhao and Gongsun, who asked him to explain in detail.

Coincidentally, Bai Yutang and Bai Ye returned at the same time.

When they entered the SCI office, they saw Zhang Yu holding the drawing and frowning as he confirmed it once more, eventually nodding, "That's right, it's him!"

Bai Yutang was also surprised, "You've seen it?"

When Bai Ye arrived at Zhao Jue's side, he saw him sitting on the sofa with a tin of chocolates on his knee and eating them, his other hand resting on the back of the sofa, wrapped in a thick layer of gauze.

Bai Ye looked at his hand with some confusion, "What happened?"

Zhao Jue shook his hand, "What do you think?"

Bai Ye was silent for about three seconds before asking, "Mutated?"

Zhao Jue squinted at him, not bothering with him, and continued to eat the chocolate.

Bai Chi was afraid that Bai Ye would misunderstand. He had just inquired about it and roughly knew what had happened, so he quietly told Bai Ye about it.

Bai Ye's eyebrows twitched slightly and he laughed dryly, "Short life?"

Bai Che blinked.

Bai Ye dragged a chair over and sat down, saying, "That fortune teller is just half a bucket of water, right? Haven't you ever heard that disasters last a thousand years?"

Zhao Jue sent another glare flying at him.

Zhang Yu raised his eyes to look at this side and helplessly lowered his head to continue to look at the portrait. It was all his fault... he was indeed half a bucket of water.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, which meant – How old are you, still using this trick? Or did you take advantage of the opportunity to cut Zhao Jue?

Zhan Zhao blinked, pretended not to see, and took out Bai Yutang's sword to admire it. Everyone felt that recently, Zhan Zhao's mental endurance and mental control seemed to have gone up a notch.

"Where have you seen him before?" Bai Yutang asked Zhang Yu, deciding that it was better to get down to business.

Zhang Yu reached for his cell phone and began to rummage through the photos, finally finding one and laying it out on the table.

Everyone gathered around to look at it. They saw that there was half of a small courtyard in this photo, and a person was standing at the entrance of the courtyard... It was precisely that Grim Reaper costume, and he revealed a large part of his body, which appeared to be looking toward the entrance. The cell phone photo had limited pixels and was taken with a slight shake, but the presence of the man could still be seen clearly.

"Wow..." Jiang Ping couldn't help but shout, "A ghost movie!"

Bai Chi also nodded, so scary!

"It's the same person!" Gongsun got excited, "That's the same person I saw!"

Zhang Yu, however, was concerned and asked Gongsun, "Are you sure he's human?"

Gongsun was slightly stunned.

Bai Yutang frowned, "Is there a reason to suspect that he isn't human?"

Zhang Yu found a chair and sat down, probably organising his thoughts before he began, "I often attend funerals to perform rituals for people, and I've seen him appear at a few people's funerals. At first, it was super shocking, but then I somehow grew to anticipate it. I wanted to find out the reason for his appearance, but I could never find it. He often didn't show up when I was expecting him, but then he appeared out of the blue when I wasn't mentally prepared for it. Each time, he's near the place where the funeral is held, either at the door or at the window, just far enough away, and by the time I try to get a closer look, he's gone."

Everyone looked at each other in disbelief – The sudden disappearance part was very similar to Gongsun's description; in Gongsun's case, the man had also suddenly appeared and then disappeared.

Bai Yutang asked, "You don't find it strange? Haven't you investigated?"

"I made a point of investigating it, after all, it's a very weird thing." Zhang Yu said with great concern, "And what's marvellous is that only I can see him every time, no one else has seen it... I thought that my ancestors had inherited some kind of yin and yang eyes or something that would allow me to see the ghosts and gods, until I was able to use my cell phone to take a picture of him, which should have indicated that he wasn't a ghost or a god at all, right? "

"How did you photograph him?" Bai Yutang was curious.

"This is a real coincidence, I was on the phone that day when he suddenly appeared." Zhang Yu said, "So I took the opportunity to take a picture, I didn't expect it to be taken."

"Are there any characteristics of the funerals of those he appeared at?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Those funerals were just very ordinary funerals, with a wide variety of styles and different beliefs, some believed in Buddhism, some believed in Jesus, and some believed in nothing." Zhang Yu frowned, "The methods of death were all different. If there was only one common denominator, it is... the black butterfly."

The crowd was stunned.

"What black butterfly?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

"There is a legend in funeral customs that is found in almost every country, that is, when a person dies, the soul will turn into a black butterfly or moth to see the family for the last time, and when it flies away, the soul of the deceased also leaves with it." Zhang Yu said.

"That's because of the temperature of the corpse as well as the odour, right?" Gongsun said from the perspective of a forensic scientist.

"I understand, of course, it can be explained scientifically." Zhang Yu nodded, "This is not rare, think of it this way, some things become true because of a certain amount of accumulation For example, if a hundred people die, and a black moth appears next to the corpse of one. How many people have to die globally every day? When it accumulates to a certain amount, it naturally becomes a legend. But purely in terms of probability, it's easy for one hundred people to die and have some sort of insect fall next to the body of one. Perhaps it's a squatting cat, or perhaps the family dreams of the deceased returning to their souls at night."

Zhan Zhao glanced at him and said, "Are you trying to say that the occasional appearance of black butterflies or moths near corpses is a normal phenomenon, but the appearance of a black butterfly every time this Grim Reaper appears is an anomaly?"

Zhang Yu snapped his fingers to point at Zhan Zhao, "Communicating with smart people saves energy, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"Are you sure it's a butterfly or a moth?" Gongsun asked.

"Mhmm, it's not quite like an ordinary butterfly, but it's also not like a moth that's covered in hair, it's a beautiful creature." Zhang Yu took a pen and paper and drew a picture for the crowd, "Since they rest on the corpse, it's not good for me to take out my cell phone and take a picture of the corpse, right? Not to mention that the family members would be unhappy, this is also a big taboo in our line of work."

Everyone nodded in understanding.

Zhang Yu drew for a while and described it, and the crowd all looked at Xiao Bai Chi.

As a little nature-loving encyclopaedia, Bai Chi looked at it for a while and said, "Night butterfly."

"Night butterfly?" It was the first time the crowd had heard of it.

"To be exact, it's the brown-tipped black butterfly." Bai Chi said, "This kind of butterfly is almost completely black, especially the centre of the wings, which are black like velvet. The brown colour around the edges of the wings is close to dark gold, which is quite flashy. They are about five to six centimetres in size, and their wings take on an irregular shape, so if they fly at night, they are almost indistinguishable from the darkness of the night."

"They are indeed pure black, and the further into the wings, the more they blush with dark gold. I usually never see this kind of butterfly at all." Zhang Yu said, "It should be a rare species, but the families are all very happy to see this butterfly."

Everyone stroked their chins.

Gongsun called Chen Yin and asked for detailed information about this butterfly.

Chen Yin told the crowd that this brown-tipped black butterfly was a relatively rare species, originating from the tropics of South America. The black butterfly is so mysterious that zoologists know almost nothing about its larvae, so the clues Chen Yin could give were limited. When it came to raising butterflies Chen Yin was able to help, saying that butterflies are not difficult to raise. He could introduce a few friends of his who like to raise butterflies to the crowd, but those who have a phobia of bugs or an intense phobia had better stay away, after all, butterflies are purely in the state of bugs before turning into butterflies, and are relatively disgusting bugs to look at.

The crowd subconsciously looked at Bai Yutang, and sure enough, Captain Bai's eyebrows were furrowed. The top of the list of things Bai Yutang hated the most was probably every kind of bug.

Zhan Zhao asked Chen Yin to help look into it, and Chen Yin naturally agreed wholeheartedly.

The group hung up the phone and went back to that Grim Reaper drawing.

Bai Yutang asked Zhang Yu in disbelief, "What happens to this butterfly afterwards?"

"They always fly away when it gets dark. This kind of butterfly disappears as soon as it flies into the darkness of the night, it's impossible to catch them." Zhang Yu spread his hands.

Bai Yutang looked at Jiang Ping.

Jiang Ping brought over a piece of paper and asked Zhang Yu to recall in detail the times and places where he had seen the Grim Reaper emerge. As long as there was a time and place, in this day and age, it was always possible to find one or two places with surveillance, and although it was a needle in a haystack, with the help of a computer to help fish it out, it was possible that there could be some clues.

On this side, Zhang Yu was scratching his head thinking about the time and place.

On the other, Zhan Zhao looked back.

He saw that Zhao Jue, who had been quite noisy, was sitting on the sofa with a tin of chocolates in his hand, staring blankly.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other, feeling a bit strange.

"Speaking of butterflies..." Bai Ye suddenly looked up and said to Zhao Jue.

However, before he could finish his sentence, Zhao Jue's cell phone suddenly rang... Clang clang~ A soft and coquettish text message tone, which seemed to be the sound of a wind chime shaking twice.

Zhao Jue was slightly stunned.

This reaction was quite subtle. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both saw it and glanced at each other again.

Zhao Jue's cell phone text message sounds were all different. He was quite idle, so each person's text message sound was different. For example, Zhan Zhao's text message tone was a cat's meow, and Bai Yutang's was the cry of a baby tiger, which he specifically ran to the zoo to record. Bao Zheng's text message tone was the barking of a dachshund, Zhan Qitian's was a golden retriever, and Bai Yunwen's was a husky, it wasn't clear how he was able to tell the difference. And Bai Ye's was the most special... the sound of the wind.

This time, the sound seems to be a porcelain wind chime, very light, but also very nice.

Zhao Jue fought a daze before reaching for his cell phone, looking up incredulously at Bai Ye in the process.

Bai Ye peeled an orange and slowly said, "I just ran into her near Chao Jiu's house."

Everyone's ears perked up, especially Zhan Zhao, who curiously asked Bai Yutang, "Ran into who?"

Bai Yutang thought for a moment, he was probably referring to the woman with the Great Danes.

At this time, Zhao Jue had already clicked on the text message, glanced at it, and reached out to touch his chin...

However, before his hand could touch his chin, Bai Ye blocked it.

Zhao Jue returned to his senses, only to realise that the hand he had reached up was the injured one.

Zhao Jue suddenly laughed, staring at his hand as he said, "There is someone who raises butterflies elegantly. She showed up suddenly, perhaps there's a connection."

The SCI crowd all looked at Zhao Jue curiously, which meant – Who?

Zhao Jue picked up one side of his mouth and spoke, "Daughter!"

"Pfft..."

At Zhao Jue's words, Bai Chi's mouthful of tea sprayed out, the things in everyone else's hands dropped, Zhan Zhao's eyes widened in shock, and even Bai Yutang revealed a look of surprise. Gongsun shook Bai Jintang with his mouth wide open. Bai Jintang was also confused, he hadn't heard that Zhao Jue had a daughter, did he get married?

"What's the situation?" Zhao Zhen was also curious. He counted the generations, wouldn't Zhao Jue's daughter be his cousin?

Bai Ye said helplessly, "It's not a relative."

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief and then became curious, "Goddaughter? Zhao Jue doesn't look like he would accept a goddaughter."

So they looked at Bai Ye together again.

Bai Ye was speechless, and after a long time, he stifled a sentence, "Dry ones don't count..."

The crowd tilted their heads, even more confused.

Zhao Jue, on the other hand, stood up and walked to the window. Through the glass window, he looked at the gorgeous night scene of S City's lights, and said to himself, "People are just strange. Some people are obviously good at everything, but they just can't be liked. Some people are not good at anything, but they are likeable..."

Bai Yutang thought back to the woman just now. With her age, it was indeed unlikely that she was Zhao Jue's daughter, but the one that Eugene said he was waiting for should be her... What was her origin?

Bai Yutang was lost in thought, but he heard Zhan Zhao suddenly ask, "That Grim Reaper appeared, and this kind of black butterfly also appeared, is it a person following a butterfly, or is it a butterfly following a person?"

Everyone looked up at Zhan Zhao.

Zhang Yu held his chin and said, "Those funerals were ordinary, and nothing else happened after they were done... Could it be that that Grim Reaper is a butterfly lover?"

"But why would a rare butterfly from South America appear at an ordinary funeral?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Captain..."

At this time, Jiang Ping, who had run off to check the information, suddenly shouted. Because he jumped up a bit violently, the swivel chair was knocked a long way away.

Jiang Ping ran over with a sheet, "There were several funerals that Zhang Yu provided, I checked and one of them turned out to be the female student who was one of the three deceased."

Everyone froze, then turned their faces together to look at Zhang Yu.

Zhang Yu also rubbed his chin, "Such a coincidence..."

Everyone couldn't help but frown. Those three serial killings, and Gongsun's case from ten years ago, at this miraculous point, were connected... A bizarre death and a rare butterfly, what exactly is the connection?

......

In S City's noisy night market, a white van weaved in and out, eventually stopping in front of a roll-up door.

It was a place in the middle of the bustle and looked like the entrance to an ordinary warehouse.

The car stopped, the door opened, and Eugene stepped out. He looked at the rustic van and sighed.

Walking to the other side, he yanked open the door and the woman in black stepped out. Eugene went back to open the back doors, and two burly Great Danes stepped out as well.

Eugene closed the car door and walked over to the roll-up door, took one of the keys the woman handed him, opened the door and pushed it upwards. Behind the roll-up door was an iron door.

Opening the iron door, the scene inside made Eugene frown, "Wow... every time I come here I lose my appetite."

The woman smiled slightly and led the dogs inside.

Eugene frowned and followed her inside, closing the roll-up door and the iron door.

Behind the iron door was an abandoned factory, vast and empty. The iron was rusted, and there was a strong smell of rust, which was approaching the smell of blood. The floor was speckled with dark stains that looked like dried blood no matter how you looked at them. A few dim old-fashioned light bulbs hung on the ceiling of the factory, and the voltage was not too stable, so the light was sometimes bright and sometimes dim.

Not far away were two large blankets, and food and water bowls. The two Great Danes did not follow them both forward, but went straight to the food bowls and ate their meals.

Eugene raised his eyes and saw three elevators ahead of him, two of them broken, the doors open and empty, and on the roughly painted walls, there were large patches of splattered blood, which was disgusting to look at.

Eugene took a deep breath and made his way towards the middle elevator with the closed door without looking around.

Just as he pressed the elevator button, his eyes swept over the empty elevator next to it.

Eugene immediately backed up and tilted his face to look away, but when he raised his head, he saw several corpses hanging from the iron bridge spanning overhead, and gasped again, "Wow... Sister, your taste is getting heavier and heavier."

The woman in black walked over to him and raised her hand to press the down button on the elevator that he hadn't pressed earlier.

The elevator doors opened and the two walked in.

The elevator doors closed... and it headed underground.

Behind the two empty elevator doors were two square recesses. There was no telling how deep they were, because they were filled... with all sorts of twisted and hideous corpses... completely filled.

Eugene stood in the elevator, crossing his arms, "If someone mistakenly entered your place, they must be scared to death."

The woman did not say anything. The elevator went down two floors and stopped. The doors opened... and in front of them was a completely different scene.

The wooden structure had a black floor, the open space was empty, and there was a huge potted plant right in the middle.

Eugene opened his mouth wide, looking at the "potted plant". This was a potted plant without a single fresh leaf. The twisted dead branches and various styles of wilted leaves formed a beautiful picture of a mixture of black and dark gold.

Eugene approached with his mouth wide open, and saw that on one of the branches, a beautiful butterfly was struggling to come out of one of the "leaves".

Eugene was shocked, and when he looked closely, he realised that those so-called "dead leaves" were not leaves, but chrysalises that looked very much like dead leaves.

Eugene circled the potted plant and found that several butterflies had already broken out of their chrysalises.

As he was watching, he heard the woman suddenly say, "Someone's coming."

Eugene froze and turned his face to look at her, "Who? An enemy?"

The woman smiled, "There will still be people looking for me other than enemies."

Eugene raised an eyebrow, "You still have friends?"

The woman wasn't angry. She smiled faintly, the fingers of her right-hand bent, and the tip of her index finger touched the palm of her hand. In the palm of her hand, there was a long scar, following the location of the lifeline down close to her wrist. It was a very deep scar.

......

At the roller gate, Bai Ye's car stopped.

Zhao Jue opened the door and got out of the car, and from the back seat, Zhan Zhao also Bai Yutang stepped out.

Zhao Jue took out a key from his pocket and handed it to Bai Ye.

After Bai Ye opened the roller door, he frowned when he saw the iron door on the inside and looked at Zhao Jue speechlessly.

Zhao Jue shrugged.

Before Bai Ye pushed the door open, he warned Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "No matter what you see later, keep calm first."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other – Was there anything in there that called for not being calm?

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Little slice-of-life update from me, cause why not? This winter I got back into curling, the sport I grew up with but haven't touched since moving to a big city. This year, I joined a half-season recreational league, and on Saturday, the team we were playing asked me if I wanted to join their more competitive league team next year. And as their skip nonetheless! I was really proud of myself at that moment.

I also impulse-purchased tickets for myself to go watch both the women's and men's finals of the Grand Slam of Curling this year, as they are being held in my city and I've never gotten to watch professionals live. I'm super excited because these players are the best of the best, and I will be able to learn a lot of strategy from watching them.

That's it for my slice-of-life update, as apart from curling and translating, this semester has been absolutely brutal for me.

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: January 8, 2024 by Angel

Edited: March 7, 2024 by Angel