S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 76

Countdown from the Murderer 06 – Room Number

---

All the members of SCI are investigating the murder of Mark Fan, but they came across an inexplicable murder of a private investigator, who was also involved in a celebrity affair.

The pharmacist issued a fourteen-day time limit. A day was about to be wasted, but the murderer could not be left unaccounted for.

Fortunately, although the culprit's plan was meticulous, a few mistakes were made, and SCI found a clue and identified the suspect as a hotel baggage attendant named Chen Zhihong.

The manager led Bai Yutang and the others to the lobby.

Coincidentally, at this time, several buses arrived at the entrance and a new travel group was preparing to check in. The hotel's baggage handlers were unloading their luggage at the entrance.

As the entrance of the hotel was surrounded by a large number of media, the tourists could not enter after getting out of their buses.

The hotel had never encountered this kind of situation before, and the management was slightly chaotic.

Bai Yutang, Ma Han and Zhao Hu went downstairs. They observed the three baggage handlers working on the side of the bus from a distance, and asked the manager, "Is he there?"

"No..." The manager was shaking his head when all of a sudden he saw someone pushing a luggage trolley in.

"Ah..."

The manager pointed at the person, and Bai Yutang and the others took a look... It just so happened that the person also happened to look up.

The two sides exchanged glances.

As soon as Chen Zhihong saw Bai Yutang and the others as well as the manager who was pointing at him, he suddenly turned around and ran.

Bai Yutang and the others, of course, chased after him.

Chen Zhihong originally wanted to run towards the front door, but a group of grandparents poured in from the front door. This was a senior travelling group.

Bai Yutang was really afraid that he would rush out and hit someone, but luckily that person made a sharp turn and ran towards the stairwell at the back where there were fewer people.

Bai Yutang, Ma Han and Zhao Hu immediately chased after him, informing Jiang Ping at the same time, "He's running to the stairwell! Keep an eye on him!"

Jiang Ping in the surveillance room quickly found Chen Zhihong's location, and at this time, Bai Yutang had already caught up with him.

Chen Zhihong panicked and started to run upstairs.

How could he outrun Bai Yutang when it came to climbing stairs? Captain Bai stepped on the handrail and practically flew up to the second floor. He flipped over and landed in front of Chen Zhihong, then kicked him down.

Behind him, Ma Han and Zhao Hu had already arrived. They grabbed Chen Zhihong who had been kicked down, pressed him on the stairs and handcuffed him.

"Yutang, did you catch him?"

In the earpiece, Zhan Zhao's voice came.

Bai Yutang replied, "Caught him."

As he spoke, he asked Chen Zhihong, "Did you kill Li Feng?"

Chen Zhihong had been struggling hard, but when he heard Bai Yutang's words, he froze, "What?"

Bai Yutang vaguely felt that there seemed to be a problem – If Chen Zhihong had killed someone, why didn't he leave right away instead of continuing to work in the hotel... Are all of the recent murderers' psychological aptitudes so formidable?

"Kill someone?" Chen Zhihong's face was shocked, and he busily explained, "I didn't!"

"If you didn't kill anyone, what are you running for?" Zhao Hu asked him.

"I... I just stole something, I didn't kill anyone!" Chen Zhihong kept struggling.

Zhan Zhao's voice came again, "Yutang, rummage through the pockets of his clothes."

Bai Yutang reached out, rummaged through his pockets, and indeed found some jewellery and a bit of cash in his pockets.

Bai Yutang frowned.

Chen Zhihong explained that he just entered the unoccupied room through the ventilation duct to steal some valuables...

On the other end of the earpiece, Zhan Zhao said, "He shouldn't be the murderer either."

Bai Yutang was speechless. Zhao Hu and Ma Han also found it strange – How did everything fit together? TV dramas didn't even dare to work like this!

"When you were in the duct..." Bai Yutang himself felt that it was strange to ask this, but he still had to ask, "did you run into anyone else?"

Chen Zhihong froze.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han glanced at each other – Could it be that he really ran into them?

"I just heard voices." Chen Zhihong said, "There were other sounds in the ducts, and it felt like there was another person crawling, but I didn't really think about it."

Zhao Hu stroked his chin, "Could it be that I climbed in the opposite direction? Is it the other side?"

"The other side..." Bai Yutang thought back. The stairs they just took to get to the restaurant were the stairs on the other side, but he remembered that there were no air vents on the walls of those stairs.

"Where are the air vents on the other side?" Bai Yutang asked Chen Zhihong.

"The air vents over there are facing the outside of the building, and the vents can't be opened, but the external air vent is shared by two floors."

Bai Yutang frowned, "That means you can go to the twenty-fifth floor as well?"

"Yes, but the air vent in the stairwell on the twenty-fifth floor is very small, only half the size of the one on the twenty-sixth floor, so a person can't get out."

It seemed that Chen Zhihong was a habitual thief, he knew the ventilation ducts of all the floors quite well.

According to him, however, if the murderer had entered the ventilation duct to escape, he had probably also heard Chen Zhihong's movements as he crawled through the duct, so he chose not to go out through the exit on the twenty-sixth floor. Then the real murderer might have crawled into one of the rooms on the twenty-sixth or twenty-fifth floors connected to this air duct, and then exited through the room or was still in the room.

Jiang Ping started checking the CCTV again.

On this side, they asked the hotel manager to ask the front desk to check the occupancy of the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth floors.

According to the structure of the hotel, this ventilation duct connected rooms one through ten on the twenty-sixth floor and one through ten on the twenty-fifth floor, which was a total of twenty rooms.

On the twenty-fifth floor, apart from room 2507, all the other rooms were full of group guests, but none of them were there during the day, they had all gone out to have fun.

And on the twenty-sixth floor, 2604 was occupied by Zhou Ping, who was sitting in the stairwell waiting under the supervision of the police officers. 2603 was occupied by Li Feng, and other than that, all the other rooms were empty.

Jiang Ping once again retrieved the surveillance footage.

Zhan Zhao, on the other hand, asked the manager why 2507 wasn't empty.

The manager said that it was probably arranged through the hotel's internal personnel. In order to maintain confidentiality, there was no check-in information, and the hotel was looking into it.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned when they heard this. This hotel probably has irregular operations behind the scenes.

But forget about pursuing the hotel's violations for now, they should catch the murderer first.

Today, all kinds of coincidences collided with each other. They caught the wrong murderer twice, they caught a cheating and a habitual thief, but not the murderer.

Jiang Ping was too busy alone, so Xiao Bai Chi ran to the surveillance room to help watch the footage.

But the strange thing was... the two floors, twenty-five and twenty-six. The group guests on the twenty-fifth floor all went out to the restaurant early in the morning to eat breakfast. Li Feng was still alive at that time.

And the twenty-sixth floor, apart from Liu Tian and Zhou Ping who were active, there were no signs of suspicious people going in and out.

"So the murderer is still in one of the rooms?" Bai Yutang asked.

"They should be." Jiang Ping checked the earlier footage, "But when did this person come in?"

"Are there any surveillance records of Wang Meiyun's stay?" Zhan Zhao suddenly asked.

Jiang Ping checked and replied, "No, all the videos of Wang Meiyun's entrances and exits have been cut, there is no record of her entering or leaving."

After Zhan Zhao heard this, he suddenly smiled and turned around to walk away.

The crowd followed him downstairs.

Zhan Zhao walked straight to the entrance of 2507.

At this time, 2507 was quite lively.

Two police officers were guarding the door, and in the room, Wang Meiyun was crying and was on the phone with her agent.

Qian Fu frowned and smoked one cigarette after another, and on the bed, the drunken Liu Tian was still sleeping.

Bai Yutang asked Qian Fu, "Why did you take a bath in the room upstairs?"

Qian Fu said that Wang Meiyun had a cleanliness fetish and did not allow others to use her bathroom.

"So you specially booked room 2613 and came here after showering?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"That room is the one I've always booked. My company is nearby, so I often stay at this hotel." Qian Fu replied.

Zhan Zhao silently nodded, pointed at Wang Meiyun's cell phone and signalled for her to hang up.

Wang Meiyun looked at Zhan Zhao and ended the call.

Zhan Zhao suddenly patted Qian Fu's shoulder and said, "You're really lucky."

Qian Fu froze.

When Wang Meiyun heard this, her expression changed slightly.

Zhan Zhao pointed to Bai Yutang and gestured to the closed bathroom door.

Bai Yutang, Zhao Hu and Ma Han exchanged a glance.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu each guarded one side of the door, holding down their matching guns.

Bai Yutang reached out, knocked on the door, and said, "Come out."

Shortly after, a click could be heard, the bathroom door was opened, and a man walked out.

The man looked to be in his thirties, he was wet and gloomy-eyed. He was wearing a shirt and a pair of jeans, and had a smile on his face.

Wang Meiyun sighed and sat paralysed on the sofa.

Qian Fu looked puzzled and looked around in disbelief. He reached out and pointed at the man, and asked Wang Meiyun, "Who is he? Why is he in the bathroom?"

Zhan Zhao smiled and looked at Wang Meiyun, "Do you know where you went wrong?"

Wang Meiyun frowned without saying anything.

Zhan Zhao pointed at the man with a nervous face who came out of the bathroom, "It's possible to kill the wrong person when you buy a murder."

Wang Meiyun viciously threw the cell phone against the opposite wall.

After a loud bang, the cell phone fell and hit Liu Tian, who was sleeping, on the head.

Liu Tian woke up with a start, looked around and fell back to sleep.

Wang Meiyun looked at the sky and rolled her eyes, "They are all useless!"

Qian Fu stood up in fear and looked at Wang Meiyun with an unbelievable face, "You... planned all of this? You want to kill me?"

Wang Meiyun also revealed her true face at this time. She changed her soft and weak appearance from just now and looked at Qian Fu viciously as if she wanted to cut off his flesh, "You don't want to divorce your wife at all! You've been toying with me from start to finish!"

Zhao Hu and Ma Han nodded silently – There's a risk in cheating ah...

Having the officers handcuff that perverted killer and take him away, Bai Yutang turned to Zhan Zhao with some confusion and asked, "Did that killer get the room number wrong?"

Ma Han and Zhao Hu couldn't help but complain – Such poor business skills ah?

"It shouldn't be that assassin's mistake, but rather Wang Meiyun got it wrong when she explained the mission, thinking that 2507 was below 2613, but in fact, it was 2603..."

Zhan Zhao spoke while observing Wang Meiyun's expression and asked, "Who told you that 2613 is above 2507?"

Wang Meiyun just sat there and sighed, her face depressed to the core.

"Then let me guess." Zhan Zhao asked her, "Did Mark Fan tell you that?"

Wang Meiyun was helpless, and eventually nodded.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, "So it was Mark Fan who deliberately gave Wang Meiyun the wrong information, so that she hired an assassin who ended up killing the wrong person..."

Zhan Zhao nodded. It should be that Mark Fan intentionally used Wang Meiyun to kill that private detective!

Everything was actually not planned by Wang Meiyun, but by Mark Fan.

He first asked Nurse Jin to book room 2507 for Li Feng, and then Li Feng switched to 2603. The empty 2507 was then given to Wang Meiyun to stay in by the hotel through certain illegal operations... It was all within Mark Fan's planning and manipulatable range.

2613 was the room Qian Fu had rented for a long time, and the reason why Wang Meiyun stayed in 2507 was because Mark Fan told her that the room was just below 2613, and that you could climb there via the air vent in the bathroom.

So Wang Meiyun hired the assassin and told him to kill the person in the room upstairs.

That morning, when Wang Meiyun sent Qian Fu upstairs to take a shower, the assassin was in her washroom and went up to 2603 through the ducts, only to mistakenly enter Li Feng's room and kill Li Feng, who was also taking a shower and shaving.

On the other hand, Wang Meiyun arranged for Liu Tian to send money to Li Feng to settle the matter of the report.

The killer crawled into the pipeline naked, and after killing Li Feng, he washed the blood off his body, disguised the scene as an impulse killing, and crawled back to the bathroom in Wang Meiyun's room to put on his clothes before leaving.

But who knew that when he climbed back, Qian Fu unexpectedly also came back and all plans were disrupted.

As Zhan Zhao talked about the case, he opened Wang Meiyun's purse and rummaged through it. He found a bottle of medicine, picked it up and looked at it, then handed it to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang took the bottle of medicine and couldn't help but frown – How could this be?

‿︵‿︵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 8, 2024 by Angel

Edited: June 27, 2024 by Angel