S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 22

Witness of the Three Murderers 22 – Hideout

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Zhan Zhao observed the ancient corpse in the glass display case and asked Kai Bin, "Whose corpse is this?"

Kai Bin reached out, gently stroking the glass display case as if he were stroking the corpse's face through the glass, "He is the legendary faceless man."

"Faceless man?" Bai Yutang looked at the corpse. Although it was dry, the face was intact, why was it called the faceless man?

"This corpse comes from a very old family." Kai Bin leaned over the glass case, looking at the empty eyes of the ancient corpse as if he were looking at an old friend, and said in a slow tone, "This family gave birth to a person with an ability akin to being cursed, which is that all those who have seen him will not remember his face."

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly, and Zhao Jue, who was "viewing" a dry corpse on the side, also raised his head, as if the dialogue here had aroused his interest.

"What does that mean?" Zhao Hu couldn't understand, "Does it mean you've seen it but can't remember the face?"

Kai Bin nodded, "For example, let's say you have this ability. You met ten people today, and those ten people talked to you face-to-face and spent time alone with you, but after parting, even if it's only for a minute, when you see those ten people again, none of them will remember what you look like!"

Zhao Hu opened his mouth, completely at a loss as to how to react.

Ma Han was also digesting this statement, was there such a thing?

"But those ten people, will they remember the conversation?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Kai Bin smiled faintly, "Worthy of being a top psychologist... they remember!"

"That doesn't make sense." Zhao Hu shook his head, "If you don't remember the person, how can you remember the conversation?"

"It's not that they don't remember the person, it's that they don't remember the face!" Zhan Zhao said, "That's why there needs to be something to fill the gap... those ten people remember the mask he wore, or..."

"The faces of the others." Zhao Jue added slyly, "Replacement!"

Kai Bin smiled faintly.

"Is that why he's called the faceless man?" Bai Yutang looked at the ancient corpse and said, "But looking at him like this, it's perfectly possible to remember his face."

"Are you sure that what you remember is really his face?" Kai Bin, however, asked in return.

Bai Yutang was slightly stunned.

Kai Bin smiled, "You think you're seeing such a dry face, but there's a good chance that what I'm seeing is different from what you're seeing. If the legend is true, then no one would know what he really looks like, right? Even using re-imaging technology, it's impossible to determine what he looks like... When our eyes are deceived, they can be saved by our brains. But if and when our brain is deceived, then no matter what method we use, it's useless.

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly.

"This is the ability to transcend nature!" Kai Bin tilted his face up and looked towards the sunny sky outside the floor-to-ceiling glass window, "If a person possesses the ability to directly deceive the brain, then he becomes an existence close to God, and all deception techniques are nothing more than child's play. The five senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch... are all controlled by this place."

Saying that, Kai Bin gently pressed his hands on both sides of his head and looked back at the crowd with a somewhat maniacal look, "Controlling this place, as long as a message is delivered, even if there are a thousand soldiers in front of you, you can make all of the brains go out of control in an instant! When the brain transmits a message to itself that it has died..." saying that, he gently snapped his fingers, "in just a moment, a thousand soldiers will fly away in ashes!"

The crowd couldn't help but frown.

"Does this kind of ability really exist?" Zhao Hu couldn't help but ask.

"If the legend is true," Kai Bin pointed at the dried corpse in the transparent coffin, "then he did it!"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue simultaneously looked at the corpse in the coffin.

"No matter how he did it, he's already dead." Kai Bin spread his hands, "The secret is sealed."

"That is to say," Bai Yutang frowned, "those secrets are contained in the five items that were stolen?"

Kai Bin gently stroked his chin, "Perhaps it exists in a cryptic state on those five items..."

At this moment, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang simultaneously thought of the odd patterns that were present on the mask and pendant which Chen Yu could see.

At this moment, Zhao Jue came over and stood in front of the glass coffin, looking down at the body of the "faceless man ".

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang noticed that his eyes were changing little by little, and a light full of joy appeared in his eyes.

Kai Bin walked to the side of the glass coffin, then reached out and pointed to the beam above, "The first curator killed himself here..."

Zhan Zhao, Bai Yutang and the others all tilted their faces to look upwards.

Ma Han couldn't help but frown. That beam was at least six metres off the ground, how was it possible to climb up without any support?

Close to the movements of the crowd, Zhao Jue also raised his head at this time, but he wasn't looking in the direction of the crossbeam, instead, he was looking at Kai Bin who was standing not far from his side.

Bai Yutang also noticed that Zhao Jue's expression was somewhat strange at this time, and he gently patted Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao turned around and saw Bai Yutang gesturing for him to look at Zhao Jue, so he turned back and froze when he saw it.

At this moment, Zhao Jue was looking at Kai Bin like he was a cold-blooded animal looking at food.

Kai Bin was just about to say something when all of a sudden he saw a hand appear in front of his eyes. This hand was pale and thin, with extraordinarily long fingers. When it appeared violently in front of his eyes, he could barely tell that it was a human hand.

Kai Bin instinctively took a step back, and the hand that grabbed at his face missed but caught the collar of his white coat.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han also saw the movement over here and were a bit puzzled.

At this moment, they saw that Zhao Jue grabbed Kai Bin's collar with one hand and pressed him onto that glass display case, while his other hand reached up as well. Immediately after that, Zhao Jue did an unexpected action, the fingers of his right hand snapped into Kai Bin's right eye.

"Hey!" Zhao Hu was startled and wanted to go over to stop it, but Ma Han gently stopped him, signalling for him to look at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

At this moment, Bai Yutang similarly wanted to go up and stop it, but Zhan Zhao was grabbing his arm, clearly stopping him.

"Waah!" Kai Bin yelled out, but despite being skinny, Zhao Jue's strength seemed to be very, very great. After Kai Bin was held down by one of his hands, all he could do was wave his hands, struggle and scream miserably.

Even though he screamed miserably, Zhao Jue's two fingers were locked into his eye socket, but he didn't bleed.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han looked at each other – No way... a fake eye?

Then, Zhao Jue pinched the glass eyeball and yanked it out...

Zhao Jue finally let go of Kai Bin, took a few steps back, pinched that eyeball, and held it up to the sunlight...

Zhan Zhao and the others clearly saw that it was a transparent glass imitation eyeball, with a few extremely thin lines at the back. The ends of the lines were connected to a small pocket chip, and on that lens, there was blood.

Kai Bin covered his eyes and rolled on the ground while laughing.

Zhao Jue stared at the fake eyeball and he saw a black hole inside the eyeball, similar to the pupil. However, the extremely tiny pieces of metal around the pupil enlarged, and the pupil enlarged in a circle as well.

Zhao Jue laughed and spoke to that eyeball, "G... so you're hiding here!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other – There should be a camera in that eyeball, and that chip and several thin lines should have been implanted in Kai Bin's body and connected to his nerves.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han also couldn't help but raise their eyebrows – No wonder Kai Bin didn't have any reaction even after staring at Zhao Jue for five seconds, Zhao Jue wasn't hypnotising him at all, but was looking at his eyeball. He probably realised earlier that this guy had a fake eye!

Zhao Jue handed that eyeball to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took a napkin and pinched that eyeball in disgust, while Bai Yutang pulled out an evidence bag.

Zhan Zhao put the eyeball into the evidence bag, and at that moment, he saw Zhao Jue walking over and hauling Kai Bin, who was rolling on the ground, up.

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "What does he want to do?"

"To look for G, I guess." Zhan Zhao smiled faintly, stretched out his finger, gently tapped his lips, and made a "shh" motion to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang was speechless, and Zhao Hu hurriedly hid behind Zhan Zhao, covering his ears in the process.

At this moment, Zhao Jue lowered his head and whispered something in Kai Bin's ear. Kai Bin had already detached himself from the state of insanity he had just experienced, and he was now listening to Zhao Jue's words with one eye wide open and an empty eye socket. At the same time, his mouth was moving, as if he was saying something, but no sound came out.

Zhan Zhao looked at the shape of his mouth and wondered what he was saying. It didn't appear to be an ordinary language by the looks of it.

After about three minutes, Zhao Jue stood up and said to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "Exhibition hall twenty-three."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang raised an eyebrow as Zhao Hu and Ma Han went out and began to search for exhibition hall twenty-three.

Soon, they found the door of the room labelled "23".

This time, it was an iron door. Zhao Hu turned the door handle and found that the door was locked.

At this time, Zhao Jue walked over, followed by Kai Bin, who held a key in his hand and handed it over.

When Ma Han received the key, he looked at Kai Bin and couldn't help but frown... This person was now like a walking corpse.

Zhao Hu secretly spat out his tongue. Compared to Zhan Zhao's gentle use of psychology, Zhao Jue was simply brutal. Just now, the theory Kai Bin mentioned about how controlling the brain is close to being a god was actually very plausible, because Kai Bin's current state was tantamount to being controlled by Zhao Jue. If Zhao Jue snapped his fingers, Kai Bin might walk to the window and directly jump out, or immediately fall to the ground and stop breathing... No wonder they had to think of every possible way to lock Zhao Jue up in the past, this guy is too dangerous, he is simply an anti-human existence...

Ma Han opened the door of the room and felt that the temperature of the room was much lower than the outside world, and there was a sense of eeriness, somewhat like Gongsun's forensic room.

Everyone walked in and found that the room was empty. There was just one large iron box against the wall, roughly the size of a coffin, which seemed to be powered. There was a touch screen similar to a control panel on the side of the iron box, and there was a very small green dot of light flickering.

Zhao Hu touched his chin – What the hell is this? High-tech ah!

Kai Bin walked over and reached out to open the lid of that iron box...

The crowd looked inside and saw that there was an intact corpse... There was an old man close to sixty years old lying inside, in a state that seemed like he was sleeping, and there was a rope wrapped around his neck, with a weirdly fashioned knot tied at the end of the rope.

"Ah!" Zhao Hu couldn't help but exclaim.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were also surprised.

Kai Bin raised his head and said, "The corpse of the first curator."

Zhao Jue smiled faintly.

Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang, who was also clearly a bit excited and took out his cell phone to call Gongsun...

Half an hour later, a super exaggerated armoured car-like white medical vehicle stopped downstairs at the museum, and Gongsun rushed up with a group of forensic scientists in white coats.

Ma Xin and Xiatian, who had come straight from Qiao Yuanxin's old mansion, excitedly circled the coffin – Good! Captain America was also frozen for seventy years!

When the coffin was opened, Xiao Xiatian scanned the body with an unknown device, and after looking at the data, shouted, "The data is normal!"

Gongsun took the lead, and the crowd of forensic scientists collectively cheered.

The corners of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths twitched, and when they turned around, they saw Bai Jintang, who had been dragged over halfway through his meal with Gongsun, leaning helplessly against the doorway, shaking his head.

‿︵‿︵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 19, 2024 by Angel

Edited: April 9, 2024 by Angel