S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 19

Witness of the Three Murderers 19 – Plant

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After Gongsun used the equipment to see through the small square box, he found that there was something inside. The cross-section was similar to a fold, and he could not tell what it was with the naked eye, so he needed a more precise instrument.

Gongsun called and inquired. At present, there isn't an organisation in S City that has a machine that can analyse this thing with precision.

Gongsun frowned at the box and the mask and picked up his phone.

Zhan Zhao curiously asked him, "Is there someone else to ask?"

Gongsun gently sighed, "With nothing to do, there is only one solution!"

Everyone looked at him in confusion – What solution?

Gongsun made a quick call. About three seconds later, the phone connected and Brother Bai's voice came through.

The crowd looked at the sky... So it was like this.

Bai Jintang listened to Gongsun describe the machine he wanted and found that Gongsun showed signs of drawing closer to Zhan Zhao. He understood every word of that sentence separately, but together it didn't sound like a human language. What kind of "X-ray, precision fluoroscopy, cross-sectioning, remodelling and reconstruction?

So Brother Bai gently interrupted Gongsun, who was struggling to describe it, "Darling."

Gongsun blinked.

The crowd shuddered.

"Do you want medical equipment or archaeological supplies?" Bai Jintang asked.

Gongsun stroked his chin, "Mhmm... this one..."

"I see." Brother Bai replied.

The crowd listening with their ears perked up could not figure it out – With just a hum, what did he understand?

Then they heard Bai Jintang on the other end instructing the twins, "Go and buy all the machines that have anything to do with X-rays, send them to the SCI forensic lab within twenty-four hours for your master to pick and donate the remaining ones that weren't chosen."

"Heh..." The crowd gasped.

The twins then cursed and went out to place their order, "People buy flowers and diamond rings when they fall in love, you buy some weird and wacky equipment every day!"

Gongsun turned off the speakerphone and chatted with Bai Jintang a little more, probably about where to eat, and then hung up the phone. Turning back, he saw that the crowd was looking at him with a subtle look. Gongsun pushed up his glasses, and gently shook his cell phone, "Your brother's golden words!"

The crowd all tilted their heads, which meant – Please enlighten us.

"A problem that money can solve is not a problem." After saying that, Gongsun smiled, stuck his hands in the pockets of his white coat and wandered away to change his clothes, preparing to take the opportunity of waiting for the machine to go for lunch with his sweetheart.

The SCI crowd touched their chins. Brother Bai actually says such middle-aged words in private... Of course, these words feel so convincing when he says them...

Chen Xiaofei, who did not understand the situation at all, looked left and right with his mouth open, and the three girls, Ma Xin, Chen Yu and Qi Le, cupped their faces, "Yaaaah! Big Brother Bai is a domineering president style!"

......

As for Chen Xiaofei's great-grandfather, after all, they had been separated since childhood and Grandpa Chen didn't know much. Qi Le and Chen Yu still had to prepare for the concert, so they all excused themselves.

Chen Mi took Chen Xiaofei for the time being and invited him to have a meal with his mom and Grandpa Chen. Chen Xiaofei happily followed, and after the meal, he was able to go with Grandpa Chen to watch Chen Yu and the girls rehearse. He felt that this life with a grandfather, a big brother and a big sister was instantly wonderful!

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang prepared to go to the museum first to have a look and asked Chen Xiaofei to wait at Chen Yu's rehearsal space after eating, where they would pick him up when they came back from the museum before going to his father's warehouse together. The people from the forensics department had already gone to that warehouse to collect evidence first and it should now be in a state of no entry for outsiders.

Before going to the museum, Luo Tian came back from the hospital. The "hunter" who was caught had his injuries treated and was now being held in the detention ward below SCI, under close guard.

"How's his condition?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Luo Tian shook his head, "He hasn't woken up from the anaesthesia yet, so we can't ask about the situation for the time being. There's nothing on his body that can establish his identity. The forensics department has taken his fingerprints and is comparing them, and Qin Ou is waiting for the results."

While he was talking, the elevator door opened. Qin Ou ran out, holding a piece of information in his hand, "Captain, the results are out!"

To be honest, the crowd didn't have much hope for the fingerprint results, but looking at Qin Ou, it seemed like a match had been found.

"Have they found his identity?" Bai Yutang asked.

Qin Ou held out an identification report, as well as an old file, "Do you remember this person, Qiao Yuanxin?"

"Sounds familiar." Zhao Hu felt like he had heard it somewhere.

"Qiao Yuanxin is a tycoon in S City. Ten years ago, his sixteen-year-old son, Qiao Xi, was kidnapped and the kidnappers demanded a hundred million dollars in ransom." Xiao Bai Chi's head stored almost all of the cases recorded in S City, "Qiao Yuanxin didn't trust the police, instead, he trusted a fortune teller and took the ransom money to the kidnapper early. The scene of the exchange was on an abandoned bridge, and it's not clear what happened during the exchange, but it turned out that Qiao Yuanxin drove his car into the kidnappers and then the car went out of control and shot off the bridge. One of the kidnappers was killed on the spot and two fell off the bridge and died in the end. Qiao Yuanxin drove his car and together with his son and the hundred million in ransom rushed off the bridge and fell into the river... When the police fished the car up, only Qiao Yuanxin's body was found, his son Qiao Xi and the ransom money were missing. The river under that bridge runs straight into the sea and the current is very turbulent. The rescue team searched for a month but did not find Qiao Xi, so everyone thought that he was washed away to the sea, his fate unfavourable."

Everyone present had heard of this case. Back then this case was sensational, and no one could understand why Qiao Yuanxin had to make such a ridiculous decision.

Originally, the police had made a thorough deployment, and the rescue should have been able to proceed smoothly, however, they didn't know what was wrong with Qiao Yuanxin, but he insisted on going an hour earlier and had a conflict with the robbers, which resulted in the plan being messed up and it turned into a tragedy.

Police later investigated. It turned out that Qiao Yuanxin was very superstitious. He asked a fortune-teller to help him look at the time, and on that day, he went to pay early. It was the idea of the fortune-teller who said that that hour was the best and that after that hour, Qiao Xi's life could not be preserved.

Afterwards, the police searched for the so-called fortune-teller, but the fortune-teller had long since run away and most of the information he provided to the Qiao family was false. The police suspected that the fortune-teller and the kidnappers may have been in collusion, but the kidnappers are dead, and Qiao Yuanxin is also dead, so the "master" has not been caught yet.

On the old file, there was a picture of the "master". This person was careful, leaving only one picture which was taken through surveillance, and it was blurry.

Zhan Zhao finished reading the file, then glanced at the fingerprint comparison chart and frowned, "The hunter we captured, is the Qiao Xi who disappeared back then?!"

Qin Ou nodded, "When the rescue team searched for Qiao Xi who fell into the river back then, they took his fingerprints from his home because they were afraid that the body fished out would be difficult to recognise after being soaked in seawater. Although they have not been used, they were stored in the file. They were the fingerprints that Lao Wang of the forensic department took when he went to his home, and they were taken from the computer keyboard he commonly used."

As he was talking, the elevator doors opened and a small intern from the forensics department ran up, holding a file bag.

"Captain Bai," The intern handed the file bag to Bai Yutang and said, “just now, I called and told the department head that Qiao Xi had been found. The department head is in the warehouse and asked me to take this file bag and give it to you guys, it's the pictures he took of Qiao Xi's room back then. He said he felt that Qiao Xi had some problems, so he took them back then and stored them."

Zhan Zhao took the file bag and poured out the photos inside, spreading them out on the desktop.

Everyone looked at the photos.

The photos were taken of a bedroom from all angles, and from the information on the file bag, these were photos of Qiao Xi's bedroom.

The crowd frowned, this bedroom – it really didn't look like the bedroom of a normal high school student!

What kind of posters do sixteen-year-old boys usually put on the walls of their rooms? Sports star posters, anime characters, or maybe film posters or something like that...

But there shouldn't be any normal students hanging a wooden carving of many twisted skeletons on the wall facing their beds.

The image of that wood carving was extremely cruel, it seemed to be depicting the process of someone suffering from the wrath of God. There was a large group of skinny, twisted and withered people, some of them pierced by spears, some of them split by knives, and some of them smashed by hammers... And in the sky, there was a huge skeletal man holding a long whip in his hand with an evil expression on his face. The surrounding area was decorated with many patterns, mostly leaves, birds and insects, and the jungle wind was heavy.

"Hmm..." Zhao Jue stroked his chin, “What an unattractive carving!"

Everyone nodded, the artwork had an extreme visual impact, but it wasn't aesthetically pleasing at all, it was simply ugly to the extreme!

“Fuck..." Zhao Hu couldn't help but cringe, “what kind of kid is this?"

"A sixteen-year-old can no longer be considered a kid, this age is the youthful rebellious period." Zhan Zhao moved a few photos out and said, "Look at the CDs he collected and the books he read."

Zhan Zhao paid attention to the details. The crowd saw a stack of CDs all with black covers, all sorts of bizarre patterns and crooked characters.

"These don't look like officially published CDs." Bai Chi said.

"They should have been recorded independently and then had custom covers made." Zhan Zhao said, "But it's not like he has the equipment to make them in his room. Considering the level of technology ten years ago, he should have bought these disks. Some underground bands sell them privately and they're not regular publications, I'm interested in these disks."

"The books he read are also marvellous." Bai Chi pointed to the bookshelf and said, "These books are wrapped in black covers and have a red tree stamp on the top edge."

"This red stamp doesn't appear in his room very often." Zhan Zhao moved a few more photos out and saw that there was a sticker like that on the post at the head of Qiao Xi's bed, a symbol like that on the upper left corner of the computer's monitor, as well as a symbol like that on the bookcases, on the window frames, on the table lamps... and other eye-catching places.

"What kind of cult did he join?" Ma Han frowned.

"This tree shape, doesn't it look like what we saw in the old castle yesterday, the family tree of that hunting family that nailed butterflies?" Bai Chi asked.

"There is some resemblance..." The crowd thought it was quite similar.

"Wait a minute..."

Bai Yutang looked at it for a while before suddenly taking out the address of the museum that Jiang Ping had just pulled for him and showing it to the crowd.

They saw that the address should have been copied from the museum's webpage, and in front of the address, there was a logo-like pattern, green, tree-shaped, and with a circle on the outside.

“They seem to be the same!" Zhan Zhao compared the two patterns.

The crowd glanced at each other – A subtle connection!

"What's the name of that fortune-telling master?" Zhan Zhao suddenly asked.

Qin Ou glanced at the information and said, "Calls himself Heavenly Master Hou."

Bai Yutang patted Jiang Ping's shoulder and gave him both the file and the information.

Jiang Ping flexed his muscles and cracked his knuckles, took the file bag and started tapping on the keyboard, "Let me find out just who this Heavenly Master is!"

After that, Bai Yutang had the crowd split up to investigate.

Luo Tian and Qin Ou took Ma Xin and Xiatian together to make a trip to Qiao Xi's house to talk to his mother.

On the other hand, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao took Zhao Hu and Ma Han along to the museum. Zhao Jue insisted on going along to join in the fun, while Bai Ye seemed to have other things to do and went to find Bao Zheng.

While Bai Chi stayed behind to help Jiang Ping along in his search for that Heavenly Master, Mia, who had recently become good friends with Jiang Ping in the virtual world, also assisted remotely.

Zhao Zhen leaned against Lisbon and continued to doze off as his family member on the side.

Sitting in Bai Yutang's car, Zhan Zhao looked at a picture of Qiao Xi's house and then at the logo on that museum address.

"Qiao Yuanxin's perverse out-of-control behaviour back then, it's possible that it wasn't just because he was superstitious." Bai Yutang said, "Maybe it has something to do with his son, maybe there are some things that only he as a father would know."

"His son is a little bad egg." In the backseat, Zhao Jue was leaning on the back of Zhan Zhao's seat with one hand while eating a lollipop, which was given to him by someone unknown.

"How can you see that?" Bai Yutang wondered.

"Indeed." Zhan Zhao said. Judging from Qiao Xi's room arrangement and various furnishings, his anti-social tendencies were quite obvious.

Bai Yutang asked Lu Fang to contact Qiao Xi's mother, and shortly after, Lu Fang called to say that it had been arranged. His mother had left the original mansion after the accident and went to live elsewhere, and that mansion had remained in its original state up to the present. She asked the maid to bring the key over and wait for Luo Tian and the others and said that if she needed to be questioned, she could go to the police station, or one of them could go and find her.

Zhan Zhao said, please ask her to come to the police station tomorrow, she can also be allowed to meet Qiao Xi.

Lu Fang agreed.

"With her husband and son dead, his mother shouldn't have had a very good time over the years, right?" Zhao Jue asked curiously.

"Not necessarily." Zhan Zhao flipped through the information and said, "Qiao Yuanxin's original wife, that is, Qiao Xi's biological mother, jumped to her death fifteen years ago due to depression. His wife at the time of the kidnapping was called Wu Qian, she was a divorcee and used to be a small actress with little fame who was quite pretty to look at. The two of them were an old husband and a young wife, the stepmother is only five or six years older than Qiao Xi, and this year she is just a little over thirty. After Qiao Yuanxin's death, she inherited his entire estate and is currently a famous single noblewoman in S City, with wealth, beauty and a colourful life!"

"It sounds like she's as suspicious as that Heavenly Master to a certain extent." Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "Are there any recent photos? Analyse her situation."

Zhan Zhao sent a text message to Jiang Ping, and before long, a few recent photos of Wu Qian were sent to Zhan Zhao's tablet, all of which were photos of her going to and from prestigious dinners, auctions, fashion weeks, and the like.

“Her life really is colourful." Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue sighed together, but after flipping through two or three photos, the two of them shook their heads at the same time, “Hmm..."

"What's wrong?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhan Zhao gently tapped his chin with his fingertips, "Wu Qian marrying Qiao Yuanxin shouldn't be for his money."

Zhao Jue also nodded, “Mhmm! This noblewoman loved her late husband and is quite a smart woman."

Zhan Zhao nodded in agreement, and at this time, another text message from Jiang Ping came through on Zhan Zhao's phone.

Zhan Zhao glanced at it and said, "Jiang Ping found out that after the police gave up their search, Wu Qian hired people at her own expense to look for Qiao Xi for three years, and the phone number offering a reward for information is still valid. There are also a few private organisations that search for people that follow up on this matter all year round."

"Judging from Wu Qian's behaviour, she thinks Qiao Xi isn't dead?" Bai Yutang asked.

"She should have some reason for persisting in her search for so many years." Zhan Zhao said, "And it turns out she's right, Qiao Xi is indeed not dead!"

"She and Chen Jiayi seem to know each other!" Zhan Zhao saw a photo of a certain fashion show where she and Chen Jiayi were sitting together, and the two seemed to be chatting, so he took out his cell phone, "Gossip between women is often the most valuable clue!"

After the call was connected, Chen Jiayi really did know Wu Qian, "Xiao Qian ah, she's very nice."

Zhan Zhao raised the key question, "Regarding her late husband, is there any gossip that you find valuable."

On the other end of the phone came two chuckles, "Then have Captain Bai give my Xiao Ma two days off for Valentine's Day!"

Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang raised an eyebrow – No problem.

Chen Jiayi contentedly told Zhan Zhao and the others the gossip, "Xiao Qian once told me that her husband didn't die of his own confusion or superstition, he was killed by someone, someone who wanted the thing he was holding!"

Zhan Zhao blinked and Zhao Jue came over, "It doesn't look like a murder for money, what did they want?"

“She said it was a bracelet or rosary beads or something." Chen Jiayi said, "Tsk tsk, Xiao Qian also said that everyone thinks that it was her husband's confusion that killed his son, but in fact, no one knows that it was Qiao Xi who killed Qiao Yuanxin."

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin with great interest and asked, “Then has Wu Qian ever commented on Qiao Xi?"

"Yes!" Chen Jiayi lowered her voice, "She said that Qiao Xi was the one who killed her husband!"

Although Chen Jiayi didn't know much, these few pieces of gossip were considered to be the cream of the crop and were worthy of scrutiny.

At this time, Bai Yutang stopped the car, and they were already in the old part of town.

Bai Yutang pointed to an inconspicuous building in the distance, "That should be it."

Both Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue looked towards the square building with black tiles and white walls.

Zhao Jue bristled – Ugly!

Behind their car, Ma Han's car also stopped.

Zhao Hu held his chin and surveyed the building, "It looks a bit like a museum, but this part of town is too old and the neighbourhood is full of big stalls. Is it okay for the museum to be located here?"

Ma Han pointed to the wall on one side of the museum, and they saw that there was a very small iron signboard, like a road sign, hanging on the wall. There was only a green tree logo on the signboard, which was the same as the logo on the website address, and it was also very similar to the pattern that appeared many times in Qiao Xi's room.

Zhan Zhao also saw that signboard, and while comparing the photo in his hand to the sticker in Qiao Xi's room, he smiled faintly.

Zhao Jue poked Zhan Zhao and asked, "What are you smiling about?"

"I thought of what you said before, about plants." Zhan Zhao put down what he was holding and unbuckled his seatbelt.

Bai Yutang opened the door and got out of the car. The original green plant logo could remind people of mostly good topics like environmental protection and public welfare, only unfortunately, it was just like what Zhao Jue had described before – Plants are ferocious!

‿︵‿︵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 16, 2024 by Angel

Edited: April 2, 2024 by Angel