S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 17

Witness of the Three Murderers 17 – Chance

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The SCI crowd read through all the information provided by Chen Xiaofei about the mysterious "hunting family" that his father had collected.

As a result, the SCI members who had accidentally found the "den" and managed to capture a living "hunter" with the help of an uninvited guest finally understood what kind of existence the "murderer" they were looking for was.

Simply put, this is an ancient family. This family adheres to a mysterious "family motto", they have a strict structure and a complete set of plans to escape "capture". For generations, they have been carrying out the work of "collecting the souls of the dead".

Zhan Zhao, Gongsun and Zhao Jue can be regarded as enthusiasts of "mysticism", and everything that is out of the ordinary, whether physical or psychological, will arouse a strong interest in these three.

According to Chen Xiaofei's father's investigation, this family has existed for more than a hundred years, just like an independent fallen country. The members of the family look for all kinds of "dead souls" with sins and kill them. These "dead souls" are brought back to their den by the black butterflies and nailed to the "tree of the undead" by undead needles. This is the process of hunting.

There are different branches within the family, and each branch has its own tree of the undead, all the undead nailed to this tree are their slaves when they reach the other world. As for how the various families communicate with each other, and what kind of identity they take to hide in this world and mingle in the crowd, it's unknown. During the day, they were just ordinary people, but when the night came and they came out to hunt, they turned into another form, the form of the "Grim Reaper" who creates all sorts of "accidents".

"It's similar to a cult." Zhan Zhao concluded after analysing all the clues, "Perhaps... Liu Jin has been telling the truth all along."

Bai Yutang looked at him and asked, "Cat, do you suspect that Yue Hai, the murderer Liu Jin has been identifying, is also a member of the hunting family?"

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin, "If what Liu Jin said is true, then there's no doubt that Yue Hai is part of the hunting family. This family has never been discovered in their process of committing crimes, but Liu Jin has seen it three times in a row, which is interesting in itself."

"And he saw them all by chance." Gongsun asked, "Could it be because he's connected to G?"

"What he saw may not be true." Zhao Jue seemed to have a different view, and his tone of voice was, as always, inducing, as if he was developing the minds of the crowd and providing different angles of thought.

The crowd was puzzled, "What do you mean?"

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin and gently nodded, "If Yue Hai is really the murderer, and Liu Jin has repeatedly identified him, that would be too dangerous! Judging by that family's level of mystery, they wouldn't leave Liu Jin as a witness..."

"Then what exactly?" Zhao Hu couldn't quite understand, "Is Liu Jin an eyewitness or not?"

"Yes and no." Zhan Zhao said.

The crowd then felt their cheeks cramp up a bit and they collectively looked at Bai Yutang, needing it to be translated into human language.

Bai Yutang failed to grasp the point. He frowned slightly, looking at Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, "Is it related to some kind of suggestive hypnosis?"

Zhao Jue stretched out a finger and said, "Liu Jin is an eyewitness, but what he saw may not be Yue Hai."

Zhan Zhao nodded, "But through Yue Hai, we can find that murderer. This is a very important clue!"

"This is the password set by G." Zhao Jue smiled faintly, "Similar to a picture password, Yue Hai is that password, and through him, we can find the murderer!"

"Why did G leave this clue?" Bai Yutang was puzzled, "With the number of enemies he has, why would he take such a risk? He shouldn't be some kind man wanting to maintain justice and help the police, right?"

Hearing Bai Yutang's words, Zhao Jue burst out laughing.

"He should..." Zhan Zhao agreed with Bai Yutang, "have other purposes, right?"

With that said, the crowd looked at Chen Xiaofei.

At least, this young man was the only one in the crowd who had seen G.

Chen Xiaofei scratched his head, which meant – I don't even know what you guys are talking about!

"What I'm more curious about is this outfit." Gongsun held the Grim Reaper mask and asked Chen Xiaofei, "This mask, is not something that an ordinary person could make. Is there a fairly successful doctor in your family's ancestry?"

Chen Xiaofei's mouth twitched, "How could that be? My ancestors are said to have been farmers."

"What about your grandfather?" Bai Yutang was curious, "Your father investigated for so long, but there was no mention in his information as to why your grandfather was killed. Judging by the pattern of killings that the hunting family has been doing, could it be that your grandfather had killed someone?"

Chen Xiaofei crossed his arms, "I really don't know about this, Dad rarely mentioned Grandpa. I always thought that he died of an illness, and then I realised that he was murdered, but the exact reason was unclear."

Bai Yutang took the mask and examined it, frowning slightly.

"What does it feel like?" Zhan Zhao asked him, he trusted Bai Yutang's superb perception.

Bai Yutang said, "Creepy."

"Creepy indeed!" Gongsun nodded.

Speaking of this, everyone turned their faces to look at Zhao Jue, who was on the side with his legs crossed and leaning back in his chair with his chin resting on his hand, "Do you have any clues about this mask?"

The expression on Zhao Jue's face at this moment carried an inscrutable amusement.

Everyone narrowed their eyes – He seemed to know something!

"This mask..." Zhao Jue suddenly laughed and asked Chen Xiaofei, "have you always worn it?"

Chen Xiaofei nodded.

Zhao Jue seemed to have heard something funny and looked at Gongsun again, "Is the structure of this mask complete? Are the muscle proportions accurate and realistically made?"

Gongsun stared at Zhao Jue and looked, "Yes..."

"Then do an intellectual puzzle. What is the most real thing in this world?" Zhao Jue raised his eyebrows.

The crowd looked at each other in disbelief.

Zhan Zhao turned his face to look at the mask and spoke, "Something real."

"Real?" Chen Xiaofei held the mask in disbelief, "What is real..."

"The most real thing is naturally the real thing." Zhan Zhao muttered to himself.

"This is a human face!" Gongsun suddenly exclaimed, "It's a mask formed after the petrification of complete facial muscles..."

With a clatter, the mask fell from Chen Xiaofei's hand to the ground.

Chen Xiaofei's mouth opened wide, "How is this possible?!"

Gongsun picked up the mask to look at it, and both Ma Xin and Xiatian came over to study it.

"This is an antique!" Gongsun got excited, "It's definitely an antique!"

Zhan Zhao searched his memory inventory. He usually didn't do much research on antiques and only had some basic knowledge. He didn't have any memories of something like "human face masks", but...

"The brown-tipped black butterfly comes from South America." Zhan Zhao connected the clues known so far, "If you look closely at this mask, there are some characteristics of the jungle culture, and the owner of this mansion, Xu Mei, immigrated to Mexico in his early years..."

Zhao Jue smiled and slowly said, "If the hunting family is the devil... then this one is..." As he said this, he reached out and pointed at the mask, "the demon king!"

"What does that mean?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

"The hunting family shouldn't be enough to whet G's appetite, the secret behind this mask is what really attracts G. But what kind of a delicacy it is, I also have no idea." Zhao Jue held his chin and looked at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "All I know is that through that witness, you will be able to find the hunting family, through the hunting family, you will be able to find that secret that attracts G, and through G, you will be able to find the base. Finding the base... is the end!" Zhao Jue turned the cell phone in his hand, the screen facing the crowd, "Checkmate!"

The crowd looked at what was displayed on the screen of his phone. It was a long list of contacts, strings and strings of numbers and characters of unknown significance making up contact name after contact name.

"What are these?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Undead souls." Zhao Jue said, "Spiteful spirits that can't rest in peace, just like those butterflies nailed to the tree of the undead."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other.

"This is the only chance!" Zhao Jue raised his eyes to look at the two, "Find G! End this! This is the best chance that has arisen in so many years!"

......

By the time the group ended their search and returned to the SCI office, it was already the next morning.

Bai Yutang called Bai Jintang and asked him for a favour, they wanted to reach out to Yue Hai.

Bai Jintang listened and asked, "How should we approach?"

"We want to get to know him without moving." Bai Yutang said.

Bai Jintang felt that it was not difficult, "I happen to have a new commercial project being inaugurated in a few days. I didn't want to organise any activities, you guys understand..."

Bai Yutang looked at the sky. It's true, as long as his older brother organises an event, there's bound to be a mess, so he tries to keep things as simple as possible for any event such as an opening or unveiling of a business.

"I can organise an event and send out some invitations, he should come." Bai Jintang said.

"What kind of event are you going to organise?" Bai Yutang was curious, "Isn't Yue Hai limited in mobility? Will he come to a general event?"

"Well... the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Bai Group or something like that. If I make it a little more grand, no one should be able to ignore it." Bai Jintang said, "I was originally discussing this matter with the twins as well."

"This is good!" Bai Yutang nodded, not forgetting to add, "We'll strengthen the security."

Bai Jintang couldn't laugh or cry, "You guys talk to the twins about the details..."

Before Bai Jintang finished speaking, Bai Yutang heard the twins' cheers from the other end of the phone, "Yahoo! It's been a long time since we've had a celebration!"

"Wait!"

Before Bai Yutang was ready to hang up the phone, Zhan Zhao rushed over, "Brother!"

Bai Jintang asked on the other end, "Any more requests?"

"Yes!" Zhan Zhao said, "Can you invite some bad guys?"

On the other end, Bai Jintang was speechless, "Bad guys?"

Bai Yutang pressed the speakerphone and looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao said, "The kind of people who have done bad things before but later escaped justice!"

Bai Jintang made Zhan Zhao laugh, "This isn't that difficult."

"Zhan kitten! There are plenty of bad guys out there, as many as you want!" On the other end, the twins cheered, "We'll pull the list for you then!"

After hanging up the phone, Zhan Zhao went back to look at Chen Xiaofei, who was sitting on the side in a daze.

Probably having suffered a considerable blow, Chen Xiaofei was listless.

Ma Xin made many cups of noodles and brought them in, giving them to the crowd for breakfast.

Bai Chi handed a cup over to Chen Xiaofei.

Just as Chen Xiaofei had taken it into his hands, Gongsun ran over with a report, "That mask is really complete human muscle tissue petrified! Amazing!"

Everyone looked at the sky.

Except for Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue who were still slurping their noodles, everyone else lost their appetite, especially Chen Xiaofei, who felt goosebumps all over his body when he thought that he had been wearing a "face" while running around for quite a while.

Zhan Zhao had Jiang Ping connect to the library's collection of books and began to flip through some books related to the jungle ritual culture of South America, while on the other side, he kept a dialogue box open to chat with someone unknown.

The phone in Bai Yutang's office rang and he walked in to pick it up. He seemed to be making an appointment with someone, telling the other party the floor where the SCI office was.

Jiang Ping scanned the mask, comparing the facial features of this mask to the vast amount of information on the internet, eating his noodles as he watched the data constantly change.

Chen Xiaofei looked around and saw that everyone was busy in their own way, it seemed to be a common occurrence to check various data while eating noodles.

At this time, the elevator doors opened.

Everyone subconsciously looked up and saw a middle-aged woman whom they had not seen before walking out of the elevator. She had a bag in one hand, and after stepping through the door, she looked towards the SCI office with some anxiety on her face.

Chen Xiaofei also looked back and jumped up in shock, "Mom!"

Bai Yutang walked out of the office and invited Chen Xiaofei's mother to come in.

Zhan Zhao put down the information in his hands and stood up.

Chen Xiaofei lowered his voice and asked Zhan Zhao, "Didn't you say you wouldn't call my parents!"

Zhan Zhao spread his hands, "It was your mother herself who called the police to say that you were missing and then asked for the call to be transferred to SCI before Lu Fang told her that she could find you here!"

Chen Xiaofei's mother followed Bai Yutang into the office and seemed relieved to see that her son was fine, then glared at him helplessly.

Bai Yutang invited her into the office to talk, and Zhan Zhao walked in as well. Chen Xiaofei wanted to follow, but his mother waved her hand at him, signalling – Go out and wait!

Chen Xiaofei had no choice but to stand outside with his noodles as Zhan Zhao closed the door behind him.

Zhao Hu came over and said to Chen Xiaofei as he ate the noodles, "Your mother must know something!"

Ma Han also nodded.

Jiang Ping shook his head, "Even when you were a child, you were able to detect that your father had secrets, how could your mother not know?"

As the crowd was discussing, all of a sudden, they heard Bai Chi let out an "Ah!"

"What's wrong?" Zhao Zhen had dozed off and sat up from the sofa to look at him.

At this moment, Bai Chi was holding a very worn newspaper in his hand, and was excited, "I found it!"

"Found what?" Zhao Hu was surprised, "The mystery of the mask or a clue to the hunters?"

"No!" Bai Chi was excited, "The burglary case that Brother asked me to look into before!"

The crowd looked at each other in disbelief – A burglary case?

Zhao Jue, who was resting against the sofa on the other side of the room, opened his eyes slightly at this moment. He glanced at this side of the room, then yawned, smiled, rolled over and continued to sleep.

Outside the door, at the corner of the hallway where one could smoke, at some point, four people had gathered.

Bao Zheng, Zhan Qitian and Bai Yunwen were chatting about something unknown, while behind them, Bai Ye was leaning against the window, staring blankly.

Outside the window was the morning scene of S City gradually waking up, and on the window was Bai Ye's reflection. Bai Ye slightly lowered his head, the cigarette in his hand slowly burning. He quietly looked at the window with no expression on his face. It wasn't clear if he was looking at the bustling city outside the window or the not-so-real version of himself on the window.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Thought I would let everyone know that I finished translating case 21 over the weekend, that's chapter 104! Now if only I could edit at a similar pace...

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

Translated: January 14, 2024 by Angel

Edited: April 1, 2024 by Angel