S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 36

Inheritor of the Three Murderers 05 – Timing

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Xu Ming was extremely unstable, and he was hiding in the corner of the two walls, so he couldn't be shot from either side.

Zhan Zhao tried to get close to him, but he just kept shouting "it's too late" and saying that the students wanted to poison him because he's an "inheritor."

Bao Zheng sat helplessly in the helicopter.

On the other side, Bai Yutang held a gun and leaned against a column, visually inspecting... The wall Xu Ming was hiding behind was at least a metre away, and the column in front of him was about half a metre in diameter, so there were gaps in front and behind.

Zhao Hu signalled to Bai Yutang – Looking from another angle, the girl is dying.

......

Zhan Zhao said, "I know you're an inheritor."

Sure enough, those words had a slight effect on Xu Ming.

Xu Ming asked, "You know..."

"I've seen another inheritor." Zhan Zhao said.

Xu Ming asked, "Then you know that I must get the antidote! I'm very important, I can't die..."

Zhan Zhao nodded, "I know someone who can cure you."

"Who?" Xu Ming asked, "Do they have the antidote?"

"Mhmm!" Zhan Zhao nodded and moved forward, "He created the inheritors."

Xu Ming warily poked his head out and looked at Zhan Zhao. He saw Zhan Zhao take a step closer, so he waved the gun in his hand at Zhan Zhao, "Back off! Back off and don't come over!"

Zhan Zhao's footsteps stopped. Bai Yutang broke out in a sweat over there... Zhan Zhao had no weapon on him, but Xu Ming was holding a gun and was obviously crazy.

Bao Zheng was anxious and sweating.

Ma Han then saw Bai Yutang near the pillar make a gesture to him.

Ma Han looked up and pressed his earpiece to ask, "Jiang Ping."

Downstairs, Jiang Ping, who had already arrived in the command car, immediately replied, "I'm looking at the surveillance, all four sides are blind spots, there are no sniper positions..."

"How thick is the pillar in front of him?" Ma Han asked.

Jiang Ping froze, "Er..."

Beside Jiang Ping, Bai Chi held the floor plan of the roof of the library and said to Ma Han, "Seventy-two centimetres."

Ma Han put the sniper rifle in his hand aside and drew a box from under the helicopter's seat.

Bao Zheng took a look... Ma Han usually carries three boxes when he carries out a mission, and this time, he brought two on the plane. One was the small calibre sniper rifle he was holding just now... Because the distance on the roof was short, there was no need for a large calibre long-range sniper rifle...

Bao Zheng then saw Ma Han open the case, from which he took out a sniper rifle with a black barrel and a dark green metal stock. He set the gun on his knee, and with his other hand, he fished out a bullet of about twenty centimetres in length from the edge of the case.

"Wow..." Bao Zheng was startled, "What are you doing? Shooting a gun?"

Ma Han loaded the bullet into the clip, pulled the bolt, and leaned back against the door, adjusting the scope as he said, "AMR5075... I haven't used it since I left the sniper team."

Bao Zheng was puzzled, "Was this gun assigned to you by the police force? What is that shell?"

Ma Han aimed at the wall...

Zhan Zhao saw that on the wall, a red spot of light appeared.

"APFSDS." Ma Han said. (Angel: Armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot.)

Bao Zheng asked, "What does that mean?"

"Bao Sir," On the other end of the headset, Bai Chi's voice came through, "that's a 15mm calibre bullet that can penetrate two walls or armour plates from eight hundred to a thousand metres away."

Bao Zheng frowned and asked Ma Han, "Where did you get this?"

Ma Han said, "A farewell gift when I left the sniper team."

Bao Zheng's mouth opened wide. At this moment, he didn't have the extra brainpower to judge whether Ma Han was serious or just talking nonsense.

"Shoot him down?" Bao Zheng asked.

Ma Han shook his head, "Listening to Dr. Zhan, we want him alive."

On the other end, he saw Bai Yutang make a "wait" gesture to Ma Han.

Ma Han held the gun and adjusted his breathing. The pilot and Bao Zheng didn't dare to take a single breath...

Zhan Zhao naturally saw the red dot of light and also heard the dialogue between Ma Han and Bao Zheng in the headset... If killed...

Zhan Zhao was just thinking about it when he suddenly heard the ringing of a phone coming from the place where Xu Ming was hiding.

Zhan Zhao was slightly stunned.

Xu Ming then shouted, "Time's up! Time's up! Ten seconds left... ten seconds left!"

Only then did Zhan Zhao realise that it was probably not the phone ringing, but the alarm tone that had been set on his phone...

"Xu Ming!" Zhan Zhao called out to him.

At the same time, he heard Guan Weiwei scream as Xu Ming pushed her out.

Guan Weiwei fell to the ground and Xu Ming raised his gun to her. It was clear from Zhao Hu's side that this was an execution technique...

Xu Ming's entire body hid behind the column, and just as he raised his gun, Zhan Zhao suddenly shouted, "Be careful!"

Almost at the same time that Zhan Zhao opened his mouth, Bai Yutang rushed out of the corner and charged headlong in Xu Ming's direction.

The crowd heard the ping of a gunshot...

Bao Zheng and the helicopter pilot felt a buzzing in their ears.

On the left side of the opposite wall, about a metre high, a hole of about ten centimetres in diameter appeared, and on the other side... Xu Ming flew out.

Bai Yutang rushed in just in time, pushed Xu Ming away and pressed him against the wall. Zhao Hu picked up the gun, while Luo Tian went over and picked up the dying girl and ran to the door to put her on the stretcher that had been waiting over there for a long time. EMTs treated her wounds, and sure enough, she lost too much blood. They lifted the stretcher and rushed into the elevator to go downstairs and send her to the hospital.

Zhan Zhao ran to the wall and saw Xu Ming struggling against the wall in pain, the back of his right hand that was holding the gun just now had a hole in it. Fortunately, the wall was thick enough to dissipate most of the rifle's power, otherwise his arm might have been blown up.

Zhao Hu looked at the broker handle of Xu Ming's gun in his hand, then walked over to look at the hole, "Wow... did Xiao Ma Ge just use a mortar or a sniper rifle?"

Through the hole, he could see the cabin door of the helicopter open. Bao Zheng was stepping down and Ma Han was putting away his gun.

Bao Zheng got off the aircraft and asked, "Are they dead?"

Zhan Zhao gave him a thumbs up, "Neither one is dead!"

Bao Zheng was excited and pointed back at Ma Han in the cabin, "Good job! Equip a few more bullets! Equip more bullets!"

Jiang Ping curiously asked Ma Han, "How did you know where his hand was?"

Ma Han smiled... Because Zhan Zhao suddenly shouted "be careful" just now, Xu Ming, who had his head down and was pointing his gun at the girl, reflexively looked up. When he saw Bai Yutang who rushed towards him, he instinctively raised the gun in his hand slightly... In this instant, a slight hint of the black muzzle appeared on the side of that pillar, and Ma Han therefore judged where Xu Ming's hand that was holding the gun was located... His aim was just to shoot the gun away, but the sniper rifle was too powerful, and Xu Ming's hand would certainly be ruined... This was already the lightest price, and Ma Han only had a tenth of a second to think about it, and of course, he pulled the trigger.

Xu Ming's injury wasn't light. Bai Yutang had Luo Tian and Qin Ou handcuff him and send him to the hospital to have his wound treated, then escort him straight back to the SCI office.

Zhan Zhao wasn't in a hurry to go back and said to Bai Yutang, "I want to take a look at his office."

Bai Yutang thought for a moment, "You want to go see that cup of coffee?"

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly, "Mhmm, to see if he was really poisoned."

"Chief." At this time, Zhao Hu brought over a cell phone that was placed in an evidence bag and gave it to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took it and opened the cell phone... to find that sure enough, there was a set alarm clock on the screen. The ringtone just now should have been this one.

Bai Yutang also took a look, the alarm clock was set for 9:44:50 PM.

"He said there's ten seconds left..." Bai Yutang asked, "So is it 9:45 PM?"

Zhan Zhao frowned, "What does this time mean?"

Everyone shook their heads.

After all, it was a major incident involving three lives, so Bao Zheng first led the troops back to deal with the aftermath. Bai Yutang, on the other hand, led the crowd, along with the headmaster, to Xu Ming's office.

After the incident, Bao Zheng had already arranged for the others in Xu Ming's office to be brought out, with a cordon drawn at the entrance to the office and two police officers guarding the door.

Zhan Zhao and the others walked in. The headmaster also followed them in, his hands clasped together, not daring to touch the things on the table.

The headmaster was already quite old, and with his sweaty head and pale face, everyone was a little worried about the old man's blood pressure.

The people from the forensics department came over.

Zhan Zhao walked over to Xu Ming's desk, pointed to the half cup of coffee that had already cooled down, and said to Old Wang from the forensics department, "Can we know right away if it's poisonous or not?"

Old Wang picked up the cup and looked at it, then sniffed it.

He stepped aside, took out a small portion with a test tube, opened a box with an instrument inside, and began to do a simple test.

Jiang Ping was checking Xu Ming's computer, and Bai Chi was rummaging through the documents on his desk.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu were asking Xu Ming's colleagues at the door... Bai Yutang looked around the office, while Zhan Zhao stared at a photo frame on the desk.

As far as Zhan Zhao remembered, Xu Ming was single. The picture on his desk was not a picture of any loved one, nor was it a family member... but a landscape photo.

This was quite abnormal.

Zhan Zhao looked at that landscape photo... and saw that it was likely taken in front of some waterfall. The rushing white water splashed onto the lens... there was a half rainbow in the sky, and there was also a spot of light.

Zhan Zhao frowned as he stared at the photo, then he heard Bai Yutang call him, "Cat."

Zhan Zhao raised his head... Bai Yutang and Bai Chi were all standing behind Jiang Ping. There was something on Jiang Ping's computer screen, and everyone was looking at him, seemingly calling him to go over and look.

Zhan Zhao walked over.

Only to see that it was an email, Jiang Ping found the last email that Xu Ming opened.

Zhan Zhao lowered his head to look carefully at the screen... and saw that the content of that email was quite simple, with a total of just two lines:

The first line: The coffee is poisoned, the game is reprogramming.

Second line: End time: 9:45 tonight.

In addition, there was also a picture attached to the bottom of the email, which was a partial photo of the floor plan of the roof of the library, with a circle drawn with a red pen at the place where Xu Ming was hiding just now.

"Captain Bai."

At this time, Old Wang ended his testing and looked up, "No toxic reaction."

Everyone nodded, sure enough...

But then they heard Old Wang continue, "But there's a problem."

Zhan Zhao and the others all looked at him – What problem?

"This isn't coffee."

"What?" Zhan Zhao froze slightly.

"What is it if it's not coffee?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

"The main ingredient is water, and there are some other elements that caused the discolouration, we need to go back and examine it carefully." Old Wang pointed to his nose as he spoke, "There's no smell of coffee at all, and no poison was detected."

Bai Yutang nodded, and the people from the forensics department took their things and retreated first.

Jiang Ping continued to search Xu Ming's computer, and Bai Chi looked at Xu Ming's lesson preparation notes.

Bai Yutang, on the other hand, looked at Zhan Zhao, who was still looking at the picture frame.

"9:45..." Zhan Zhao mumbled to himself as he repeatedly recited that time while looking at that photo.

Suddenly, as if he thought of something, he turned the photo frame over and opened the back.

Bai Yutang watched as Zhan Zhao pulled out the "photo" and told him, "This is not a photo!"

Bai Yutang asked, "Then what is it?"

Zhan Zhao showed Bai Yutang the back of the photo he pulled out... and he could see that there were a few lines of text on it, as well as a postmark and an address.

Bai Yutang also understood, "A postcard?"

"Look who the sender is!" Zhan Zhao pointed to the address below the postmark.

Bai Yutang frowned and saw that on the line for the sender, there was only one letter written – G.

‿︵‿︵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: February 1, 2024 by Angel

Edited: May 5, 2024 by Angel