S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 73

Countdown from the Murderer 03 – Mysterious Guest

---

Zhan Zhao and the others accepted the challenge of the so-called pharmacist and had to solve Mark Fan's murder case within fourteen days.

Mark Fan, a psychiatrist, died of respiratory failure and asphyxiation due to an overdose of an antidote for hallucinogenic drugs.

Few clues at the scene pointed to a homicide, and according to the description of Mark Fan's assistant, Nurse Jin, he would go out with a bouquet of roses every Tuesday and Thursday from three to four in the afternoon.

Based on the nurse's previous bookings, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang arrived at a Four Seasons Hotel which was about ten minutes away from the clinic.

Ever since the two entered the hotel, a series of clues that did not make sense began to ensue.

Firstly, neither the hotel's attendants nor the lobby manager recognised Mark Fan, but all of them remembered a bearded man with a bouquet of roses who would appear at the hotel every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. But this man would not leave until six or seven o'clock every evening.

But Mark Fan was already in his clinic after four in the afternoon.

Yesterday, which happened to be Tuesday, the bearded man with the roses once again came to the hotel, as recalled by the receptionist. However, this time he stayed for the night and had not been seen leaving until now.

But the real Mark Fan had already died in his clinic.

What made Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang feel even worse was the strange structure of the hotel.

Nurse Jin originally booked room 2507, but the guest requested to change to room 2603, which was directly above his room.

When Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang checked room 2603, they found another murder case, a rather nasty case of mutilation.

Although they had already anticipated that the investigation of the case would not go so smoothly, having to investigate one more case made it difficult for the two.

Mark Fan's murder case was on a time limit. For any murder case, it's hard to investigate within two weeks unless the evidence of the crime is clear and the person who committed it has been caught. Time was already tight, and now there's another case. Are the two cases connected? Is it possible to investigate two murders in a fortnight?

......

Gongsun ran into the hotel room with the forensic team, and one look at the bathroom indicated – the murderer may have killed on impulse.

Based on the evidence left at the scene, Gongsun reconstructed the crime.

At the time of the crime, the deceased was shaving in front of the sink, when someone stabbed him from behind.

After the deceased died, the murderer probably wanted to dismember the body, but at this time there were blood stains all over the bathroom floor.

The murderer threw the body into the bathtub.

The hotel bathroom was not big, and the floor was slippery with blood. The murderer used a relatively sharp knife to cut up the body, probably similar to the kind of sharp knife used by butchers to shave meat.

Anyway, it is all kinds of unpleasant. The dismemberment was unsuccessful and also made a mess, and judging from the pattern of the footprints, the murderer slipped around the side of the bathtub several times.

Furthermore, the killer turned on the showerhead, which was also quite inexplicable.

The body was in the bathtub, and the shower was turned on. If it was to wash away the footprints on the side of the bathtub, that would make sense, but what's the point of washing the body? And running the water for a long time can easily arouse the suspicion of the occupants of the next room. In short, this operation was rather puzzling!

......

As Gongsun deduced, indeed, the sound of the constant running water from the shower attracted the attention of the occupant of the next room.

In room 2604, next door to room 2603, there was an investigative reporter named "Zhou Ping".

This reporter not only knew the SCI members, but had also participated in several press conferences, and he happened to be in 2604 to catch up on his work.

Although Zhou Ping looked tired and sleep-deprived at this time, he still suggested that the person in the room might be dead before Zhan Zhao and the others opened the door to room 2603, and speculated that it was a suicide, because the shower had been running since the morning.

In fact, Zhou Ping's "reasoning", when compared to the messy murder scene, made people feel that it was rather reasonable.

After seeing the expressions of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang after seeing the body, Zhou Ping threw out a more powerful clue – If it was a murder, he may have seen the murderer.

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang ask him for specifics.

Zhou Ping told them what happened.

He had a habit of staying in hotels for days or even weeks on end when he was writing, mainly to concentrate and not disturb his family.

There were countless hotels of all sizes in S City, located in all sorts of nooks and crannies. Zhou Ping picked one on the fly every time, and he preferred out-of-the-way hotels.

In other words, according to him, his stay at this Four Seasons Hotel was random.

As for the rooms, when he booked a room, he would choose one that was on the upper floors and was quiet.

He had been writing in this room for a week, and the people staying downstairs in this hotel were all tourists, noisy at night but quiet during the day. Because tourists left early and returned late, sometimes there was no one around for the whole day.

Zhou Ping basically hadn't been out of the room all week. He ordered room service for dinner, and he could occasionally hear the sound of the door opening and closing from next door, but the rest of the day was very quiet.

But this morning, around six o'clock, the shower in the room next door turned on.

Zhou Ping had woken up early to write, but he was a little annoyed when the shower next door stayed on for close to an hour, making it impossible for him to concentrate.

Zhou Ping ran and knocked on the door of the room next door at almost eight o'clock.

As a result, the door to the room opened and a bearded man walked out. He had shaving cream all over his face and looked ready to shave.

Zhou Ping said he heard that the tap had been running and that's why he came to knock on the door.

The bearded man said he was sorry, he had taken a shower, washed his clothes and shaved, so it took a little longer.

By the time Zhou Ping returned to his room, the water next door had been turned off.

Zhou Ping then continued to write.

Then the door next door opened and closed. Zhou Ping thought that the guest next door had gone out.

But after a short while, the water next door was turned on again, and the sound of the shower came once more.

Zhou Ping didn't pay much attention to it and continued to write, but who knew that the sound of the water would continue for a long time without stopping, and Zhou Ping became very annoyed.

This time, instead of going next door and knocking on the door, he called the front desk and said that the water next door had been running continuously.

After the receptionist answered the phone, she told the cleaning staff to take a look.

The hotel manager found the receptionist who answered the phone, as well as the cleaning lady.

The receptionist confirmed Zhou Ping's words, while the cleaning lady said that she went to the door of the room and knocked on the door, and the shower was turned off.

Zhou Ping also nodded. He indeed heard the aunt knocking on the door.

After that, Zhou Ping continued to write, but not a moment later, the shower sounded again.

Zhou Ping then thought that the other person might have done it on purpose. He hadn't been out for a long time, so he decided to go to the hotel's restaurant to have lunch and refresh his mind.

After having his lunch, Zhou Ping went back to his room.

He took the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor, and after exiting the elevator, instead of going through the hallway to take the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor, he took the nearest staircase which ran from the twenty-fifth to the twenty-sixth floor.

But when he was going up the stairs, he saw the staircase door of the twenty-sixth floor being opened. An odd man wearing a bathrobe, with a towel wrapped around his head, hugging a pillow and wearing slippers, ran out and quickly stepped down the stairs, passing by him.

Zhou Ping saw him enter the security door of the twenty-fifth floor.

At that time, Zhou Ping did find it very strange. In the middle of the day, why did he come out as if he was coming out of a bathhouse? Moreover, he was holding a pillow, why did he wrap his hair while sleeping, why didn't he blow-dry it?

However, after staying in hotels for a long time, he had encountered a lot of strange people. Reporter Zhou was very knowledgeable and smiled, but he did not think about it.

But after he returned to the room, he heard that the shower next door was still on, so he did not have the heart to write anything.

It just so happened that he was tired from staying up all night for the past few days, and he fell asleep while lying on the bed. After sleeping for a while, he was woken up by the knocking sound coming from the next door, which was when Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang came up with the manager and knocked on the door.

Zhou Ping thought that someone had finally come to take care of it. He climbed to his feet, lit a cigarette, and prepared for the water to turn off so that he could write in peace.

But when he heard the knocking sound continue for quite a long time without anyone coming to open the door, Zhou Ping came out to take a look. At a glance, he recognised Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, and he reckoned that something had happened next door.

Zhou Ping explained the whole incident very clearly. Of course, the first person that Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang suspected was the man who went downstairs wearing a bathrobe.

Perhaps the faucet wasn't left on to wash the body, but rather because the murderer was preparing to dismember the body after killing him. But finding it quite difficult to dismember the body, he simply took a bath himself to wash off all the bloodstains on his body. Then he hid the bloody clothes and the murder weapon in the pillowcase and carried it downstairs under the disguise of a pillow. He definitely couldn't go out like that, it would definitely arouse suspicion, so he had to change into normal clothes first. And the fact that he went to the twenty-fifth floor meant that he could only have been in one of the rooms on the twenty-fifth floor, because if he had to go to another floor, he would have taken the stairs to access the door on the twenty-fourth floor, not into the twenty-fifth floor. Of course, it was also possible to enter the twenty-fifth floor and then take another staircase to the twenty-fourth floor, but given that he was very oddly dressed in a bathrobe, he probably wouldn't have gone to that much trouble.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang instinctively thought of the empty room 2507.

At this time, Jiang Ping had already arrived at the hotel's surveillance room.

As Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao descended the stairs, they asked him to check the surveillance from the stairs at that point in time when Zhou Ping encountered the man in the bathrobe.

Sure enough, the images Jiang Ping found were consistent with what Zhou Ping had said.

Based on the surveillance of the hallways on the twenty-fifth floor, Jiang Ping determined that the man ran to the door of room 2507, used his room card to open the door and then went in.

At this point, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had already arrived at the door of room 2507 with the hotel manager.

The manager took the room card and opened the door.

As a result, the crowd had just entered the door when they heard a scream from inside.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang froze and saw a pillow flying at them head-on.

Bai Yutang was in front, he ducked to avoid the pillow and saw a man and a woman on the bed, both of them wearing rather "simple" clothes.

At the same time, Zhan Zhao felt that the woman looked familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere.

While he was pondering, two clicks sounded outside.

Zhan Zhao turned around and saw that Zhou Ping had followed him at some point and was taking pictures with his cell phone.

The woman covered her face as soon as she saw someone taking pictures, and the man climbed up from the bed and rushed out, seemingly wanting to grab the cell phone.

Bai Yutang speechlessly looked at the plump middle-aged man, who rushed towards them naked and felt that he was a bit of an eyesore.

Stepping back and pushing the hotel manager to the front to stop the naked uncle, Bai Yutang turned back and grabbed Zhou Ping, telling him to delete the photos. It was against the law to secretly take photos of other people's private lives like this!

Zhou Ping cooperated and deleted the photos.

Zhan Zhao suddenly remembered, pointing at the young woman on the bed, "I've seen a photo of them together in the publicity material of one of Chen Jiayi's films. Her name seems to be something like Yun, she's an actress."

Bai Yutang was a little confused. So? This man is the murderer? He's not that impressive, is he? After killing and dismembering a body, he still found this kind of pleasure? He didn't look like a psychopathic murderer...

Zhan Zhao suddenly seemed to understand. He sighed, turned back and gave Zhou Ping a blank look, "You're using us?"

Zhou Ping spread his hands, "No, I indeed saw that this person was suspicious."

Zhan Zhao pointed at the man, "This man is obviously a married man, this woman is not married, the two of them are having an affair in a hotel. The report you want to write is about the two of them, but the other party was cautious and you couldn't film any evidence, so you misled us?"

Bai Yutang and the hotel manager both looked somewhat sympathetically at the man and woman who had been "mercilessly poked and prodded" by Zhan Zhao, and the two of them were so embarrassed that they looked like they wanted to find a crack in the ground.

Bai Yutang was also very embarrassed. He wasn't really too interested... and commanded the man, "Put your pants back on!"

Zhou Ping heard Zhan Zhao's words and looked innocent, "No, I deleted all my photos! It just happened to be..."

Bai Yutang and Jiang Ping were still connected, and Jiang Ping's voice came over, "Nowadays, cell phone photos are directly uploaded to the cloud, so deleting them is useless. I guess they've already reached the editor of the magazine."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at Zhou Ping.

Zhou Ping eventually laughed and scratched his head, "Isn't it just a coincidence?"

The man who had put on his pants asked the crowd with a displeased face, "How much to seal your mouths, name a price..."

Before he finished speaking, Bai Yutang pointed to the side, which meant – Shut up and go sit there!

The man had to go and sit.

Zhan Zhao looked at Zhou Ping with somewhat dangerous eyes.

Zhou Ping took half a step back and hurriedly waved his hand, "Ai! I don't want to provoke you, this matter is considered to be my fault, but there's still something I haven't said!"

Bai Yutang also looked at him, his eyes more dangerous than Zhan Zhao's.

Zhou Ping said, "I did see the murderer, but he certainly wasn't wearing a bathrobe."

At the same time, Jiang Ping's voice came from over there once again, "Head, we've found the identity of the deceased! It's a bit strange..."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter

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: March 7, 2024 by Angel

Edited: June 13, 2024 by Angel