S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 27

Witness of the Three Murderers 27 – Advance

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G's appearance had a strong impact and caught Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang a little off guard, but progress was made in the case. Of course, there was only one word for progress: "contact".

This does not seem to be a standard word, but it is very graphic.

People with higher IQs usually have more thoughts, and Zhan Zhao couldn't control his rapidly expanding brain, thinking of all kinds of possibilities related to "contact".

When they returned to the SCI office, they saw a lot of packing waste piled in front of the door to the forensic room. It seemed that the machines had been installed properly. Gongsun, Ma Xin and Xiatian were excitedly preparing to "test the machines".

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao felt the "weird" atmosphere in the forensic room but decided to withdraw.

The two of them were thinking about what to do next, whether to interrogate Qiao Xi or to meet that mentally disturbed reporter first, when they heard a ding, and the elevator doors opened.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were stunned.

They saw Mia walking out of the elevator dragging a small suitcase in one hand and holding a card in the other.

After exiting the elevator, Mia looked around for a moment and caught a glimpse of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang who were staring at her from the hallway, so she waved at both of them.

Zhan Zhao turned his face to look at Bai Yutang.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and quickly walked over.

Mia handed the card to the two of them.

Bai Yutang took a look and saw that there was a message from Karin on the card, saying that she was relocating with Eugene and asking them to help take care of Mia for two days. She also wrote in detail about Mia's living habits as well as a few things she disliked very much, and instructed that she was not allowed to stay up all night and that she had to go to bed at 9:30 every night.

Zhan Zhao turned his head to look at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang was also a little dumbfounded, how could they raise such a large daughter? Although her character and nature are still that of a small child, the family is all men...

At that moment, Zhao Jue, who had finished his observation in the forensic room, slipped out, and Zhan Zhao pointed a finger at Mia, "This is your granddaughter right? Guardian!"

Zhao Jue narrowed his eyes and Mia pounced, but it wasn't Zhao Jue who was pounced on, it was Lisbon.

Lisbon was coming back from the washroom. The king of beasts had presumably just finished relieving himself and was slinking along quite comfortably with his tail wagging when he saw a girl pouncing on him, wrapping her arms around his neck and rubbing his mane. Lisbon was quite perplexed, wiggling his ears as he looked at the girl hanging around his neck.

......

Mia's arrival did not cause any trouble but directly led to the acceleration of Jiang Ping's speed of cracking the code. Combined with Xiao Bai Chi's help, soon... the notes found in the warehouse at Chen Xiaofei's old home about the mask's "ancient code" and the characters on the mask were deciphered.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han walked in from the outside and saw a pile of papers half a person high in front of the printer, which were densely printed with a variety of numbers.

Mia and Bai Chi were quickly skimming through the numbers and writing and drawing on a whiteboard, and apart from Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue who were watching very attentively, everyone else in the entire SCI was looking at the sky.

In the end, all the codes were cracked successfully.

On the whiteboard, twenty mysterious "patterns" appeared.

These patterns were all made of horizontal and vertical lines of the same length and thickness and were combined according to different rules.

The crowd looked at the patterns, confused.

Zhao Hu asked Zhan Zhao, "Why does the code look like it's still a code after it's been cracked?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue moved in unison to reach out and touch their chins.

"Have we seen these characters before?" Bai Yutang suddenly asked.

Zhan Zhao blinked.

Bai Yutang flipped through the archaeological photos that they had just brought from Lan Qi's house, found a photo of the interior of the "tomb" and showed it to everyone.

On one of the walls, there was a symbol carved in stone by an unknown person.

This symbol was similar to the ones on the whiteboard, except that it seemed to have been carved by a person using a stone, so it was a bit skewed and not very neat.

"This doesn't look like an ancient relic..." Zhao Hu stared at it, "but rather like a tourist carved it up, a bit like 'so and so travelled here'."

When Zhao Hu finished speaking, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both turned around and looked at him.

Zhao Hu was nervous, "Wh... what?"

"Hmm..." Zhao Jue stroked his chin and sized up Zhao Hu, "Amoeba still have a little bit of intelligence once in a while."

Zhao Hu's mouth straightened – Amo... amoeba...

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue studied the photo, "No wonder G went all the way to South America."

Zhao Jue asked, "What's the possibility of having the twins move that ancient tomb over?"

Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang, who was speechless, "That's someone else's cultural heritage..."

Zhao Jue narrowed his eyes.

"Right!" Zhan Zhao suddenly clapped his hands, "3D printing!"

Everyone froze.

Zhao Jue raised his eyebrows, "Wow! Good idea! It can also be stereoscopically scanned and holographically projected, but 3D printing is indeed more handsome!"

Everyone silently looked at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang sighed, his older brother was probably just going to wave his hand and dump it on the twins, who were probably going to kick over a few walls to vent their anger again. But it seems to be necessary to investigate this case...

In addition to Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, there was also the entire staff of the forensic department who had heard about the investigation of the tomb and were eager to participate in the investigation.

Since Gongsun was interested, Bai Jintang naturally asked the twins to take care of it. The twins were quite open-minded, making a holographic projection is better than moving an ancient tomb back ah, they are used to burning money.

Zhan Zhao and the others were enthusiastically talking about the topic of 3D printers. Bai Yutang snapped his fingers at this group of "scholars" and reached out to point to the sign at the door, which meant – This is SCI!

Zhan Zhao coughed and said, "Why don't we go see that reporter first? What's his name again?"

The man was captured by Luo Tian, who had just gone to the publishing house to investigate and told Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "This reporter is called Liu Xuetian."

"Liu Xuetian..." Bai Chi tilted his face up, "I saw quite a few of his articles when I was going through the old newspapers."

"Liu Xuetian was indeed very famous before he went crazy, and was quite a successful investigative reporter." Luo Tian said, "He was good at digging deep into some social issues and criminal cases. He was a very upright person, and many reports were very sensational."

Zhan Zhao also remembered, he nodded and said, "Back then, there was a very sensational case of a famous athlete killing his wife and dismembering her body that was reported by him, wasn't it? The investigation was quite careful. There was also an abduction case that he seemed to have worked on as an undercover agent to investigate and help the police solve the case."

Luo Tian nodded.

Bai Chi felt sorry, "How did such a good reporter go crazy?"

"His colleagues and editor-in-chief at the publishing house were also at a loss." Luo Tian said, "Everyone said that he was too involved in investigating Qiao Xi's kidnapping case, and the points he kept emphasising were also very bizarre."

"What points was he emphasising?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

"He kept saying 'the ghost lingers'!" Luo Tian replied.

Bai Yutang frowned, "With his profession, he shouldn't be someone who believes in ghosts and gods, right?"

Luo Tian shook his head, "He previously reported on a case where money was swindled through 'séances', and his colleagues all said that he was an absolute no-ghosts-nor-gods person who scoffed at all superstitious things."

"It's hard to imagine such a person would utter the words 'the ghost lingers'." Zhan Zhao finished flipping through the information and tugged on Bai Yutang, "Let's go, let's go see him first before we see Qiao Xi again!"

"Ai!" Zhao Hu called out to Zhan Zhao and pointed at the patterns on the whiteboard, "These characters haven't been explained!"

The others nodded their heads.

Zhan Zhao seemed to be a little conflicted.

"This is already the last step." Zhao Jue was unconcerned and directly said, "You guys won't understand even if we unravelled all of it."

The crowd pursed their lips.

"And it will be dangerous!" Bai Yutang chimed in.

Everyone froze.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue also looked at Bai Yutang.

Zhao Jue frowned and asked Bai Yutang, "What can you see?"

Bai Yutang said, "The reason why I paid attention to that graffiti-like pattern in the ancient tomb was because I felt it was very eerie when I first saw it."

Saying this, he pointed to the twenty patterns on the whiteboard, "It feels just as uncomfortable as twenty skeletons or cult symbols."

Zhan Zhao picked up the whiteboard eraser and wiped away all the characters on the whiteboard, saying to Bai Yutang, "Don't think about those patterns."

Bai Yutang nodded. Zhan Zhao turned around and poked Mia, who was combing Lisbon's fur on the side, "You too, don't think about those patterns!"

Mia nodded and poked her head, then made a gesture of grabbing something out of her ear and throwing it away, signalling – Already forgotten!

Having only been together for a few hours, the SCI crowd was already quite fond of Mia, a girl who, despite being mute and disfigured, had an exceptionally sunny personality, like a little kid in an amusement park. The crowd couldn't help but be interested in Kalin, whom Zhao Jue called his "daughter". How did that gloomy, mysterious woman who collects all sorts of death stories raise the most unfortunate child, who was destroyed as a "test subject", so simply and happily?

"That's why parents are really crucial to a child's growth and character formation." Zhan Zhao walked outside with Bai Yutang as he said, "Qiao Xi obviously isn't too normal, but Qiao Yuanxin seems to be normal, so the one who influenced Qiao Xi should have been his mother who has passed away."

Bai Yutang nodded, "Liu Xuetian keeps saying that the ghost lingers, whose ghost is he talking about? Qiao Xi's mother's, Qiao Xi's, or Qiao Yuanxin's?"

"This is worth some speculation." Zhan Zhao smiled faintly, "But there are some things that cannot be remedied later in life. No matter how much love you give a child, they will still be bad."

"What causes it?" Bai Yutang wondered, "Genetics? But there are many murderers' children who have good hearts."

"There was indeed a related debate before on whether violent tendencies would be hereditary, but I don't think that violence and hatred can overcome kindness and love." Zhan Zhao, however, shook his head.

"Then what's the reason?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

Zhan Zhao reached out and gently touched his nose "There is only one thing that can cause a person to change completely, but there is nothing anyone can do about it."

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao pushed open the door to the outer room of the interrogation room and gave the answer, "Illness!"

"Illness?" Bai Yutang asked, "Mental illness causes children to grow up to become bad people?"

"Even if there is a loving family, if the child has an antisocial type of personality, love cannot change them. To treat them, you have to use ancient and simple methods. As they say, it's easy to change a country, but it's hard to change one's nature." Zhan Zhao spread his hands, "But in reality, what is nature?"

The two of them discussed this and entered the inner interrogation room.

Liu Xuetian was sitting at the table, fidgeting. He wasn't a suspect of any kind, so naturally, he wouldn't be handcuffed.

Bai Yutang sat down and observed the vicissitudes of the reporter in front of him.

Liu Xuetian looked quite a bit older than his actual age; bearded, wearing outdated clothes, wearing old-style glasses, with puffy eyes and obvious dark circles underneath... he looked like he was already mentally and physically exhausted. One hand was inserted into his pocket, seemingly holding something, while the other hand was gently and regularly knocking on the table.

Zhan Zhao was also observing Liu Xuetian, but unlike Bai Yutang's observation, he consistently focused on Liu Xuetian's eyes.

Outside the one-way glass, the rest of SCI had come to listen. Zhao Jue had also come, and after taking a glance, he let out a meaningful laugh, appearing to have little interest.

Bai Yutang glanced at Zhan Zhao – This one looks like a lunatic, why don't you do it?

Zhan Zhao put down all the information in his hands, looking a little bummed out, and shook his head at Bai Yutang, "Ask him directly, he's pretending to be crazy."

Bai Yutang froze.

The crowd outside was also dumbfounded.

"Faking craziness?" Bai Yutang turned his face to look at Liu Xuetian, "You've been faking insanity for so many years?"

Liu Xuetian didn't say anything at this point. He looked at Zhan Zhao, then at the one-way glass, and finally turned his face to look at the camera in the corner.

"This isn't a formal interrogation, it's just an inquiry, so no one is recording." Zhan Zhao crossed his legs and asked Liu Xuetian, "Are you pretending to be crazy to save your life?"

Finally, Liu Xuetian took off his glasses and said expressionlessly, "I'm not doing it to save my life."

"Family?" Bai Yutang asked.

Liu Xuetian let out a laugh and said, "I want a cigarette."

Bai Yutang frowned slightly. He hated the smell of smoke very much, but looking at the information, Liu Xuetian was an old smoker, he probably hadn't smoked for a long time after he went crazy, and Bai Yutang was very curious about this feat of pretending to be even crazier than he was, so he waved to the outside.

The door to the interrogation room opened, and Ma Han came in with cigarettes, an ashtray and a lighter.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao held the awareness of second-hand smoke and let Liu Xuetian speak while smoking.

After Liu Xuetian took a drag on his cigarette, he let out a long breath, then coughed and snuffed out the cigarette in the ashtray, laughing bitterly, "I used to think I'd never be able to quit, I didn't realise that after not smoking for the past couple of years, now I'm not accustomed to smoking instead!"

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow – Quitting smoking is the same principle as quitting any kind of addictive thing, the so-called quitting means staying away, when you get used to staying away from a certain thing, you will also quit.

"I used to smoke four or five packs a day when I was catching up on drafts." Liu Xuetian laughed, "Perhaps if I didn't pretend to be crazy, I would have died of lung cancer by now."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang didn't have much heart to chat with him, so they asked him bluntly, "Why are you pretending to be crazy?"

Liu Xuetian was lost in thought, he was silent for a long time before opening his mouth, "Because I felt that Qiao Xi's kidnapping case was suspicious, I investigated in depth... unfortunately, I went too far."

"As an investigative reporter, shouldn't you be excited to discover that there are secrets behind the incident?" Zhan Zhao asked him back.

Liu Xuetian nodded, "I was indeed excited at first, but now that I think about it, I still don't know how high the sky is." Saying this, he suddenly changed his expression and said seriously, "Qiao Xi and his mother, are not normal people at all... or to be exact, this mother and son are not ordinary people at all!"

Zhan Zhao was interested, "Oh?"

"His mother is a monster. I felt that there was something fishy about the case, so I dug deeper into her background." Liu Xuetian said, reaching out to touch his mouth. From his series of unconscious actions, Zhan Zhao could see that he was very nervous at this moment, and... fearful.

Liu Xuetian took a deep breath and said, "Qiao Xi's kidnapping case was basically planned by Qiao Xi himself."

Zhan Zhao frowned, "What was his purpose?"

"He wanted to kill his father, Qiao Yuanxin!" Liu Xuetian was a little agitated, "And he wanted a bracelet that Qiao Yuanxin had!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had indeed learnt from their previous investigations that in Qiao Yuanxin's kidnapping case, the kidnapper had demanded a bracelet in addition to a huge ransom. And that bracelet should be part of the "skin", that is, part of the "contact".

"What else do you know?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"I... cough cough... cough..." Liu Xuetian suddenly started coughing, seemingly having difficulty breathing.

Outside the window, Zhao Jue reached out and pressed on the window, watching Liu Xuetian's reaction intently with some surprise in his eyes.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both stood up.

Bai Yutang supported Liu Xuetian who was no longer able to breathe, his mouth open and his hands grasping his neck.

Zhan Zhao, on the other hand, went to look at his eyes.

In the midst of the chaos, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang smelled a clear almond aroma in Liu Xuetian's mouth... Cyanide poisoning?

Liu Xuetian struggled fiercely. In desperation, reached his hand into his shirt pocket, and after fumbling something out, he stuffed it into Zhan Zhao's hand, his eyes staring firmly at the ceiling...

By the time Gongsun and Ma Xin rushed into the interrogation room with the first aid kit, Liu Xuetian had already died.

Gongsun examined the body and regretfully looked at Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao, "Cyanide poisoning."

Bai Yutang stood in place, feeling that something sinister had happened – How could cyanide poisoning occur? They were all in a closed space, had Liu Xuetian eaten anything during this process?

Thinking of this, the crowd all subconsciously went to see what Liu Xuetian had just touched... Cigarettes, an ashtray and a lighter.

Afterwards, everyone looked at Ma Han.

Ma Han also felt puzzled, "The cigarettes are what I usually smoke, the ashtray and lighter were both taken from the SCI office..."

Zhan Zhao suddenly stretched his hand over and spread it out for Gongsun to see, "Test this to see if there is any toxic coating on it."

Gongsun and the others looked and saw that in Zhan Zhao's hand, there was a folded yellow paper, a triangular item that looked like some sort of amulet with a pattern drawn on it with cinnabar.

"This..." Ma Xin ran to get an evidence bag which contained a talisman that Luo Tian had just found under the flower pots in the greenhouse at Qiao Yuanxin's house.

The two things were put together for comparison.

Gongsun concluded from a forensic scientific perspective, "One person did it!"

After having the people in the forensic department conduct an assessment, sure enough... both this talisman and Liu Xuetian's hands had cyanide. Even Zhan Zhao's hands, the cigarettes and the lighter all had it.

Under the supervision of Gongsun, Zhan Zhao washed his hands, and everyone remained silent. For one, they were regretful that Liu Xuetian had died under their watch, and for another... all of them coincidentally thought of the key figure that had always been present in Qiao Xi's kidnapping case – Heavenly Master Hou.

It seemed that only he and the yellow paper charm amulet would have a connection.

Zhan Zhao sighed. Liu Xuetian should have discovered a lot of secrets, so he was killed and silenced. When he was nervous, he would reach out and wipe his mouth and lick his lips .. coupled with that cigarette just now, his hands were poisoned, and he was bound to die. It's just that the crowd found it strange... Why he would carry such a talisman? According to the toxicity of cyanide, Liu Xuetian should have just got this talisman recently, perhaps just before he was caught by Luo Tian and the others.

In addition... Liu Xuetian being caught, was it intentional? This was also a question to speculate on, but it was a pity that... all the clues had been buried along with his death.

Just when the crowd was dealt a blow and hung their heads, the elevator doors opened and that godly stick Zhang Yu walked out.

Holding a cell phone in his hand, Zhang Yu was helpless, "Even though it's an obligation for the police and the public to cooperate, it's not good for you guys to forcibly call me from the crematorium when I'm conducting a funeral for someone."

Without waiting for him to finish complaining, Gongsun held out the charm and amulet to him and asked, "Recognise them?"

Zhang Yu stared at the two items for about three seconds before nodding, "I recognise them."

Everyone looked up swiftly.

Zhang Yu looked puzzled, "Amulets and talismans?..."

Everyone deflated.

Zhang Yu spoke first, "I probably know who made them."

The crowd once again lit the fire of hope and looked at Zhang Yu.

"Do you know where to find the person who made the talisman?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhan Zhao was also excited, "Quick! He might run away!"

"Run?" Zhang Yu, however, smiled and shook his head, "If he wants to run, he has to have your consent to do so. That guy is in jail right now."

‿︵‿︵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 23, 2024 by Angel

Edited: April 18, 2024 by Angel