S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 55

Misplaced of the Three Murderers 02 – Bug Thief

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"Bug?"

"Yeah, a bug!"

"Such a big bug?"

"Hmm! A big bug!"

"Fluorescent eh!"

"Awesome!"

"A scarab?"

"A plus version of the scarab!"

"Isn't it a longhorn beetle?"

"There are white dots on the back of the longhorn."

"Is that a rhinoceros beetle?"

......

In the SCI office, the SCI crowd, who had interrupted their trip to the playground, were now gathered around the table, admiring the strange bug in the ecological box.

Chen Yin and Zhao Qin were a little more excited, squatting at the edge of the table with their eyes on the same level as the bug, observing it carefully.

Bai Chi was flipping through an enormously thick insect encyclopaedia that he had found somewhere.

Zhan Zhao looked at the ecological box, looked at Bai Chi, and then looked at the box that had no sender information, and was a bit puzzled – Who sent me this stuff?

Just as he was thinking, Bai Yutang walked up beside him.

Captain Bai had just been playing a live combat game in a group with Chen Yin, Zhao Hu, Ma Han and the two brothers of the Lan family.

Originally, their group's tactics were set up properly, and the whole team's execution ability was strong. Their score was far ahead and it looked like they were going to lead the other two teams into an ambush, but who knew that Chen Yin would receive a text message and suddenly stand up, shouting in excitement.

This shout immediately exposed their positions. Bai Yutang and his team were sandwiched by the other two teams and became a target, being hit with paintballs all over the place.

Bai Yutang took a towel and wiped the oil paint that splattered on his arms, walked over to Zhan Zhao and asked in confusion, "What bug?"

Zhan Zhao nudged towards the table.

Bai Yutang moved over to take a look and immediately retreated with a look of disgust, glancing at Zhan Zhao as he did so, "Did you provoke some pervert again?"

Zhan Zhao touched his chin and thought seriously for a while. After a pause of roughly three minutes, he shook his head at Bai Yutang with a serious face, "I haven't offended anyone in the last month!"

Captain Bai helplessly held his forehead.

Bai Chi flipped through the encyclopaedia twice, put down the book and scratched his head, asking Zhao Qin, "There's no such bug in the book! Where can there be such a big scarab beetle that is fluorescent... Is it some unknown species?"

Zhao Qin: "This bug does not exist naturally!"

When he said this, Gongsun and Ma Xin, who were flipping through the information with a lack of interest, raised their heads.

Ma Xin clamped the folder in her hand under her arm and whooshed over, her fingers resting on her glasses as she observed the bug, "What does it mean that it's not a natural existence? An alien creature?"

Zhan Zhao was also instantly energised upon hearing this, "Alien civilisations are really invading Earth in a bug-like form!"

While saying this, he fished out his cell phone to take a photo to remember the event.

Bai Yutang shook his head helplessly and continued to silently wipe his arms.

Zhao Qin shook his head, "It's an earthly creature, but it's not naturally reproduced nor artificially cultivated, it's modified!"

Just as Zhao Qin finished speaking, he received a piercing gaze and subconsciously shuddered. Looking up, he saw Gongsun staring at him with narrowed eyes, his mouth slowly uttering a sentence, "Modified..."

"It's not like there are no bugs that are fluorescent."

When the crowd heard this, they looked at the person who spoke – Lan Qi.

Lan Qi had just been accompanying Hao Ling in flipping through the introductory brochure of the lunar centre, and he had also seen the bug and felt that it was somewhat similar to a kind of bug that he had seen before.

"I've seen this kind of beetle in Kashmir before. It's fluorescent, a little bit iridescent, can fly, and eats moths. What's it called, something phanta"

"Calosoma sycophanta."

Chen Yin, who was in a state of euphoria, finally came back to his senses and stood up.

"Calosoma sycophanta, Carabidae family, they are found in Xinjiang, West Asia, Siberia and other places." Bai Chi had indeed seen this kind of bug just now, but it did not resemble the one in the box.

Xiao Bai Chi flipped to the pages that introduced the calosoma sycophanta, "The calosoma sycophanta doesn't have antennae in the front, and there should be a dozen or so grooves on the sheath of its wings. This bug is flat, and the antennae and feet are different..."

The crowd came over to read the book and look at the bug, and all nodded – Right! The colours are somewhat close, but it's not the same bug at all.

"From what I remember, it wasn't this big either." Lan Qi nodded as well.

"Hmph."

Chen Yin smiled faintly with an excited expression, "The calosoma sycophanta belongs to the Coleoptera. This bug has the characteristics of Coleoptera, yet the filamentous antennae on its head belong to the order of Raphidioptera. The smooth carapace and large body size are close to the stag beetle, which belongs to the Lucanidae family. The closed basal joints of the forelegs are characteristic of the Cleridae family, and the metallic lustre of the thorax and abdomen is characteristic of the subfamily Anomala. There are nodules on the edge of the carapace, which is a characteristic of the Curculionidae family; there are annular patterns on the hind feet, some of which resemble Anisops; and there is a stout tail clamp on the sternum, which is a typical characteristic of the Forficulidae family. Viewed from the side, the dorsal plate is well-developed, not flattened like that of the Coleoptera, but arched like that of the Perisphaerinae. In addition, the well-developed maxilla is a characteristic of the Termitoidae..."

Chen Yin blabbered on to no end, bouncing from characteristic to characteristic... As the crowd listened, their mouths opened wider and wider.

Zhao Hu asked Ma Han with a tangled face, "What the hell is coleoptera? Which leg is a filamentous antennae?"

Bai Yutang wanted to cover his ears with a towel. What kind of nodule protrusion, it was disgusting to hear.

In the crowd, Gongsun was probably the only one who could understand Chen Yin's words very, very well.

"How is this possible?"

Gongsun bent down beside the ecological box and stared at the bug carefully. The more carefully he looked, the more puzzled he became, "Why would the characteristics of different orders and different families appear on a single bug? Genetic mutations can't result in this... This is not in line with the laws of nature ah."

Zhan Zhao asked Chen Yin, "So what does it mean that this bug is modified? Were several bugs dismantled and assembled together?"

The crowd tilted their faces to think about it, and they all couldn't help but have a twitch in their eyes – A bug version of Frankenstein?

This time it was Gongsun's turn to touch out his cell phone to take a picture as a souvenir, "I like this one!"

Zhan Zhao stretched out his finger and gently tapped the ecological box.

After two "da da" sounds, the bug lying on the branch turned around, seemingly disturbed, and moved freely.

"It looks healthy." Zhan Zhao said to Chen Yin, "There are no splicing marks either, not even a single scar."

Zhao Hu was in the clouds as he listened, "Bugs can also have surgery?"

"Earthworms or something like that, cut them in half and the other half will grow a head and live on."

"That's right, bugs are still relatively strong in terms of survivability."

Luo Tian and Qin Ou didn't know what kind of weird and strange children's books their sons usually read, but they talked about bugs.

Bai Yutang wiped his hands clean and shook his head as he walked to the washroom to wash his towel. Captain Bai couldn't figure out why he had come to the office to discuss bugs when he was clearly on leave.

......

Bai Yutang walked into the washroom and saw a police officer washing his hands in front of the sink.

Because the washroom on this floor was close to the forensic room, not many people usually came. Seeing a police officer who wasn't from the SCI appearing here, Bai Yutang was a little surprised.

That person raised his head and saw Bai Yutang through the mirror, so he turned back to greet him, "Captain Bai."

Bai Yutang nodded. This police officer was familiar to him, he was from the economic crime division downstairs. The economic crime division was divided into more subtle categories, as it required stronger professional knowledge. This person's name was Zhou Ming, and he was in charge of one of the more bizarre divisions – the art crime division.

Zhou Ming and Gongsun were classmates in elementary school, junior high and high school, they were childhood friends and both expert police officers. However, Zhou Ming's appearance was not as refined as Gongsun's, with a head of granny grey medium-length hair, a beard trimmed in a particularly artistic way, and a tall, thin body, looking like a decadent painter.

If Bai Yutang and his team encountered some art-related problems in their investigations, they would seek his help. Zhou Ming was also a "rare species", second only to Zhan Zhao in terms of shooting level, ranking second to last in the police station.

Bai Yutang turned on the tap to wash his towel and saw Zhou Ming finish washing his hands and pull out a paper towel to wipe his hands slowly, without walking away, just looking at him from the side.

Captain Bai looked at him and asked, "Something wrong?"

Zhou Ming laughed, "I originally wanted to go to SCI to look for you, but just as I walked to the door and saw your older brother there, I was so scared that I ran to the toilet.

Bai Yutang couldn't laugh or cry. Zhou Ming was rather disliked by Big Brother Bai because of his overly good relationship with Gongsun. There was a time before when the two of them talked and laughed as they went upstairs, Zhou Ming even put his arm around Gongsun's shoulder, which was coincidentally seen by Bai Jintang.

Since then, Big Brother Bai looked at Zhou Ming with a murderous look in his eyes, scaring this childhood friend to the point where he felt a pain in his hand when he saw Bai Jintang from afar.

Gongsun even protested to Bai Jintang for this reason, stating that he was just his childhood friend!

Big Brother Bai's gaze was cold – Fire prevention, theft prevention, childhood friend protection!

......

"Looking for me?" Bai Yutang felt it was a bit strange and asked, "Investigating a case?"

Zhou Ming nodded, "I encountered a strange thing."

Bai Yutang turned off the tap and asked Zhou Ming to follow him back to the SCI office.

Zhou Ming shuddered and suggested, "How about going downstairs? Let's talk at my place, and I can show you some pictures."

Bai Yutang nodded and followed Zhou Ming downstairs.

......

Zhou Ming's office had a bunch of artworks piled up. It wasn't obvious which ones were real and which ones were fake, and it was set up like a warehouse. Bai Yutang thought that the artwork looked better than the bugs upstairs.

Zhou Ming brought over a document and found a cleaner desk to put it down on.

Bai Yutang walked over to look at it and found that it was a bunch of photos, taken of plants, not artwork.

Zhou Ming sighed, "A case came in a few days ago, several departments under the economic division pushed it around, it wasn't within their domain. Because we were the most idle, the case was given to us in the end."

Bai Yutang picked up the photo and looked at it, selecting a panoramic picture of a building from the many photos of plants... The building was pure white, quite artistic, and seemed quite familiar.

Bai Yutang immediately recognised it, it was the nature museum in the southern suburb of S City. Previously, Luo Yang and Xiao Yi's school went there for a field trip and they brought back a bunch of atlases, as well as some kind of dinosaur models and so on.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhou Ming in confusion, "What case?"

Zhou Ming spread his hands, "A serial museum theft case."

Bai Yutang looked at him – No matter how you look at it, this is a case that you should be responsible for.

Zhou Ming sighed, "We handle many museum thefts every year, but this is the first time it's happened to a nature museum! I'm in the art business not the flora and fauna business."

Bai Yutang froze slightly. On the way back in the car just now, Zhan Zhao seemed to be chatting with Gongsun about the nature museum or something. The girls in the car were too noisy so he didn't hear them and didn't pay much attention to them... Is it such a coincidence?"

Bai Yutang called Zhan Zhao and asked him to come downstairs to take a look while asking Zhou Ming, "Serial theft of nature museums? What was stolen?"

Zhou Ming couldn't laugh or cry as he showed Bai Yutang a few other photos.

Captain Bai Yutang frowned after taking a look. The photos were all of rows and rows of open drawers, with various insect specimens in them, in rows one after another. Looking at them, Bai Yutang got goosebumps, this densely packed area was much more disgusting than the one upstairs.

Zhou Ming pulled a sheet out of the folder, "Many insect specimens were lost, scattered, things like the Cleridae, Anomala, Anisops, calosoma sycophanta, Perisphaerinae..."

Zhou Ming was reading to himself, not noticing that Bai Yutang was frozen in slight surprise as he stared at the piece of paper in his hand... Captain Bai's memory was good, and this was the second time he had heard this bunch of bug names today. Just a moment ago, when Chen Yin introduced the characteristics of that bug, all these names had appeared!

"Mhmm."

At this moment, a voice came from outside the door.

Bai Yutang and Zhou Ming raised their heads and saw Zhan Zhao leaning against the doorway looking at the two of them, with a look on his face that should be considered to be brimming with interest.

Zhan Zhao slithered over, picked up a few photos of the things stolen from the nature museums on the table and said to Bai Yutang, "Chen Yin's list of burgled museums and stolen bugs is more detailed than this."

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "You're interested in this case?"

Zhan Zhao smiled, "According to Chen Yin's speculation, there are still several types of bugs that have not been stolen. In a few days, there's a newly built science and technology centre in downtown S City that will be ready to open to the public, and there's a natural science area that contains an insectarium. Chen Yin was invited to create a recommended list for the insect museum... It's easy to add the bugs that the thief hasn't stolen yet."

Bai Yutang thought for a moment, "So we stand by to catch that bug thief? Or a gang?"

Zhan Zhao shrugged, "We're idle anyway."

Zhou Ming, who was at the side, saw that the two were interested and hurriedly stuffed all the photos and information into a folder, handed it over to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, and then spread his hands, which meant – You guys have fun!~

‿︵‿︵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 16, 2024 by Angel

Edited: May 16, 2024 by Angel