S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 82

Countdown from the Murderer 12 – Detective Agency

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Zhan Zhao was a little nervous when he saw that the caller ID read Zhao Jue, and looked at Bai Yutang – It really doesn't have anything to do with him, does it?

Bai Yutang was also unsure, gesturing for Zhan Zhao to pick it up and listen.

Zhan Zhao pressed the speakerphone.

"Ahem." Zhao Jue's cough came from the other end of the phone, and then came the sentence, "Kitty..."

Zhan Zhao heard the tone seemed a bit wrong, and asked, "It's really not related to you, is it?!"

Bai Yutang was also surprised.

There was suddenly no sound from Zhao Jue's side.

Zhan Zhao was anxious, "Is it really related to you? That Paul J..."

Before Zhan Zhao finished speaking, there were two thumps on the other side of the phone, as well as Bai Ye's voice, "Eat slowly!"

"Ai..." Zhao Jue's voice sounded once again, "Almost choked to death..."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned.

"What is it?" Zhao Jue's disgruntled voice came through.

Zhan Zhao was puzzled, "Paul..."

"Paul my ass!" Zhao Jue said, "I wanted to tell you, the mango beef tenderloin and shrimp pudding at the dessert shop across the street from your police station is super delicious!"

Zhan Zhao froze for a moment. Bai Yutang felt a little nauseous when he imagined the smell, was there such a twisted shop in front of the police station?

"Oh!" Zhan Zhao remembered, "The other day, Ma Xin said that an internet famous shop had opened across the street and that the fruit pancakes seemed good!"

"Really?" Zhao Jue immediately ordered a fruit pancake. The waiter asked him if he wanted green onions, and he said yes, and also said he wanted extra spice.

Bai Yutang felt that just hearing "fruit pancakes with green onion and spice" had already caused mental pollution to him, and he wanted to go back and complain about that shop selling poisonous food!

Zhan Zhao, on the other hand, was curious, "You called me to recommend something to eat?"

"Otherwise?" Zhao Jue said as he ate, "It's rare to find such a good shop!"

Zhan Zhao breathed a slight sigh of relief.

"What did you just say about Paul?" Zhao Jue asked.

At this time, the voice of Qian Fu shouting that the lizardman was going to kill him came from the phone, presumably because the TV in the dessert shop was broadcasting that news.

Sure enough, laughter came from Zhao Jue's side, "There really are all sorts of strange people these days!"

"Haven't you heard of Paul J?" Zhan Zhao asked curiously, "He's a painter."

"Nope." Zhao Jue probably ate the pancakes and praised them as delicious. He asked Bai Ye beside him if they were good, Bai Ye was silent, and the sound of gurgling water could be heard.

Bai Yutang shook his head sympathetically.

"If you haven't heard of Paul J, what about Flower Vine J?" Zhan Zhao tentatively asked again.

But surprisingly, Zhao Jue still hadn't heard of it, "What about Hua Teng J? Japanese?" (Angel: Hua Ten J is the pinyin for Flower Vine J.)

Zhan Zhao furrowed his brows and reached out to touch his chin – This was a bit strange. This was a typical case of psychological suggestion, which he himself hadn't heard of, and neither had Zhao Jue...

Zhao Jue continued to recommend various dishes to Zhan Zhao. When he finished, Bai Yutang wanted to vomit.

Zhan Zhao hung up the call and tapped his chin with his cell phone, "Where did Bao Sir find this file from? Strange!"

But the case had nothing to do with Zhao Jue, which was good news for both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang started the car as Jiang Ping's call came.

An address appeared on Zhan Zhao's tablet.

"Boss!" Jiang Ping said, "I found the address of Li Feng's detective agency. His place is rented, I contacted the landlord to open the door, and Hu Zi and Ma Han have already gone over first."

"Mhmm." Bai Yutang saw that the distance was not far, so he also drove there first. At the same time, he asked Jiang Ping to check the surveillance of Wang Meiyun's neighbourhood for the last two days, whether there was anyone who had entered her house, as well as whether there were any suspicious characters in the vicinity.

Jiang Ping hung up the phone and went on to check the surveillance.

Bai Yutang drove while Zhan Zhao continued to browse through trending topics on the internet.

"Ooh!" Zhan Zhao found that the topic of "lizard people" was on the hot search list, as well as a variety of unidentified or misshaped pictures and a variety of videos that proved the existence of lizard people.

"Lizard people ah..." Zhan Zhao has always been very interested in the topic of aliens, but he doesn't really believe in the various more famous alien creatures such as lizard people, big grey people, little grey people, bluebird people and so on that are circulating on the internet.

"Why are all alien creatures humanoid?" Zhan Zhao asked, "Why do all intelligent creatures walk bipedally and upright? What alien federation, interstellar alliance, after all that, they still haven't broken away from the shackles of human society? The aliens may also be in a state of dust, or the alien civilisation may simply be a purely mechanical civilisation! If they're just people in a special state, then what's the difference between aliens and mutants?"

Zhan Zhao chatted about science fiction the whole way. By the time they got to Li Feng's detective agency, he was thirsty and got out of the car to look for water first.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu's car was parked right in front of the entrance. The two had just arrived and Zhao Hu was waving at them from the second floor.

Bai Yutang tilted his face up and looked around. This was considered a downtown area, with many shops nearby and a dense flow of people.

In front of them was a convenience store. Zhan Zhao went in to buy water.

Bai Yutang saw that the second floor above the shop was a very old and long-standing residential building. It was probably two rooms joined together to form a room, and there was a rusty signboard with neon lights hanging outside the window that read – Li Feng Detective Agency.

Bai Yutang originally thought that Li Feng was quite famous and had taken on a number of divorce lawsuits, so he should be very rich and his office should be in an office building. However, there was a vegetable market at the front of this street, and there was an intersection with particularly heavy traffic at the back, so the location was a bit dicey.

While observing the terrain, Zhan Zhao ran out of the convenience store with a bottle of water.

"The young girl at the checkout knows Li Feng and says that he often comes there to eat." Zhan Zhao said.

"Go to a convenience store to eat?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

"A lot of office workers go to convenience stores to eat, buying a boxed lunch to heat up in the microwave, or making instant noodles or something." Zhan Zhao pointed to the few narrow tables by the convenience store window, "That young girl said that at first, she thought that Li Feng was a vagrant, and then thought that he was an extra because he often appeared in clothes of different professions, sometimes quite clean, and sometimes like a garbage collector. Moreover, he always seemed to be anxious and looked around furtively when he was eating. Later, when she helped the landlord collect the utility bills upstairs, she realised that he ran a detective agency."

Bai Yutang felt a little baffled, "Working this hard, just to take a few pictures of cheating?"

Zhan Zhao spread his hands, "Perhaps the anti-surveillance awareness of those who are cheating is stronger nowadays!"

"Qian Fu ran around the restaurant in a bathrobe like that, yet you still call it a strong anti-surveillance awareness?" Bai Yutang shook his head.

The door of the detective's office on the second floor was open, it was just a very ordinary anti-burglary iron door, fitted with two panels. The windows were also fitted with anti-burglary bars both inside and outside, making it look like a prison.

A bald uncle stood at the door and was talking to Zhao Hu, while Ma Han was checking out the room.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao arrived at the door.

Talking to Zhao Hu was the landlord, but he said that he basically never came over. Every month, the rent was paid directly by card, and the utility bills were also paid by the tenants themselves. There were a few that didn't pay in time, and he would ask the young girl from the convenience store downstairs to come up and remind them. That convenience store was also opened by this uncle.

However, the landlord had quite a strong opinion about Li Feng because he installed too many anti-burglary windows, making the whole building look like a prison on the second floor from the outside. Moreover, there were often some unsavoury people coming in and out of the detective agency, which sometimes scared the other tenants.

Bai Yutang asked him if he was alone in the office. Was there anyone else living with him?

The uncle said there wasn't, but he wasn't clear about the specifics. Li Feng was secretive, and no one was allowed to enter except for his clients.

Zhan Zhao walked into the room and found that the room was orderly. Daily necessities were thrown around, but the documents were neatly placed.

Two homes with two bedrooms and one large room were connected, with a total of four bedrooms and two large rooms, in addition to the kitchen and bathroom.

The two large rooms were, respectively, a living room, which appeared to be used for entertaining guests, and an office, all of which was filled with documents.

Of the four other small rooms, one was a bedroom with only one bed and two small bedside tables, and two were storage rooms, stacked with cardboard boxes. Ma Han went to open the boxes and looked at them, and found that they were some small appliances, clothes and other things. Then he looked at the packing boxes, but they were from a moving company and had not been unpacked. Some of the boxes were already mouldy.

There was also the most special room, the dressing room. It was different from a traditional dressing room, instead of spring, summer, autumn and winter clothes, there were uniforms from all walks of life, from pilots to caretakers, white coats to Santa Claus suits, jobs from all walks of life, almost all of them were there.

After Bai Yutang finished asking the landlord, he asked Zhao Hu to go to the convenience store below to talk to that young girl, to see if he could learn anything.

Zhao Hu was the best at this kind of thing and went down to chat with her.

Bai Yutang entered.

Zhan Zhao, who had inspected the entire room, came to the conclusion, "Someone came in before us."

"Did they take anything?" Bai Yutang asked.

"A desktop computer and a laptop are both present, as are the cameras in the moisture-proof cases." Zhan Zhao said as he waved at Bai Yutang.

Coming into the bedroom, Zhan Zhao pointed to the entire wall opposite the bed and said, "Here."

This wall was an entirely white wall, and there were two hooks on the wall, the kind of non-marking hooks used to hang paintings or mirror frames.

"Two paintings were originally hung here?" Ma Han asked, "Were they taken away?"

Bai Yutang frowned – Paintings again!

Zhan Zhao, however, seemed to have a different opinion, "It's true that two paintings were originally hung, but... they may not have been taken away."

Bai Yutang and Ma Han glanced at each other, looking at Zhan Zhao's expression with a bit of expectation, "It's possible that they weren't taken?"

"There are traces of rummaging around in this room." Zhan Zhao said, "If it was just to take two paintings from the wall, there would be no need to rummage. The most interesting thing is that not only did they rummage, but they also carefully covered up the traces of rummaging. They did it even more meticulously than at Wang Meiyun's house, but they didn't pull out the two nails from the wall. At Wang Meiyun's house, they didn't put the carpet and sofa back, which means that the person who took the painting wasn't afraid of the fact that something was missing from the house would be discovered, because they took everything they wanted to take. But the situation here is just the opposite, the painting was not switched, but directly taken away... indicating that the other party wants us to think that the painting has already been taken away and that there's no need to look for it anymore."

Naturally, Ma Han and Bai Yutang would not question Zhan Zhao's reasoning process, but were eager to know "So has the painting been lost?"

With his hands behind his back, Zhan Zhao walked around the room again, and then with a slight smile, he went out the door.

Bai Yutang and Ma Han had thought that they would need to take everything out of the cardboard boxes and look for them, but looking at Zhan Zhao's appearance, he seemed to already know where the things were, so they followed him.

Zhan Zhao went straight out the door and arrived at the convenience store downstairs.

In the convenience store, Zhao Hu was chatting with the girl at the cashier, and when he saw the crowd coming, he winked – The girl didn't seem to know anything either.

Bai Yutang and Ma Han both nodded.

Zhan Zhao, on the other hand, walked past the two shelves and stopped behind them, in front of the fridge where the cold drinks were kept.

Bai Yutang, who went over with him, frowned. He saw that in a hidden corner, the owner of the convenience store, that is, the bald landlord, was crouched down.

Seeing that there was suddenly someone standing in front of him, the landlord was quite embarrassed and pretended that he was stocking goods.

Ma Han looked back at Zhao Hu, and Zhao Hu nodded to him, indicating – He noticed that that boss had been eavesdropping on them.

Zhan Zhao smiled at the landlord and asked, "Where are the things?"

"Huh?" The landlord's facial expression was as exaggerated as possible, and he pretended that he couldn't understand.

Zhan Zhao was not in a hurry, he smiled and said, "Li Feng's camera is in our hands, and there are photos of you cheating inside. If you don't take out the things, I'll give the photos to your wife."

"Heh..." The landlord gasped and eventually cursed, "That bastard! He clearly told me that the photo was deleted! I even took such a big risk to help him hide his things!"

Although reluctant, the landlord still signalled for Zhan Zhao and the others to follow him.

Bringing the group to the back of the convenience store, there was a warehouse containing a stockpile of goods and two large freezers.

One of the freezers was empty. Opening it, the owner took out a very large kraft paper bag and handed it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took it and handed it to Bai Yutang and Ma Han.

The two of them unwrapped the kraft paper and took a look. Inside were two oil paintings, one large and one small.

‿︵‿︵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: March 14, 2024 by Angel

Edited: June 27, 2024 by Angel