S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 84

Countdown from the Murderer 14 – Disease

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Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both very shocked.

On the one hand, Bao Sir had been affected by the two paintings and had entered a sleepwalking state.

On the other hand, if you can see a person's real side when they are sleepwalking... Bao Sir's subconscious was actually – cleaning?

Bai Yutang couldn't stand to look at it anymore, but he didn't know how to stop it, so he could only look at Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue.

After Zhao Jue looked at the painting for a moment, he walked over to follow Bao Zheng, observing his every move.

And Zhan Zhao was even more outrageous, he actually took out his cell phone and started recording.

Bai Yutang tugged on Zhan Zhao – Don't you want to live?

Zhan Zhao expressed – Leaving evidence ah, what if he doesn't believe me when I tell him later?!

Just like that, the three of them followed Bao Zheng and watched him sweep the floor.

Bao Sir swept the floor of the hallway bit by bit, and eventually went downstairs with the dustbin in his hand.

Zhan Zhao and the others followed him downstairs and saw Bao Sir going to the waste station and carefully sorting and emptying the trash.

Zhan Zhao opened his mouth wide – His subconscious is very environmentally friendly!

Bai Yutang held his forehead.

Zhao Jue covered his mouth and tried to keep himself from laughing out loud.

After taking out the trash, Bao Sir went back to the upper floor of the police station. When they passed through the lobby downstairs, they encountered a few police officers from other departments, all of whom were puzzled as they watched Zhan Zhao holding his cell phone and following Bao Sir, who was organising the trash cans. What were they doing?

Back at the door of his office, Bao Sir put the trash can back, then ran to the washroom to rinse the mop, and began to mop the floor.

Zhao Jue covered his mouth and grasped the wall, and asked Zhan Zhao to send a copy of the video to him later!

Zhan Zhao continued to film, and found that not only did Bao Sir subconsciously love cleanliness and environmental protection, but his mopping posture was also very standard! At first glance, it seemed that there was no shortage of housework for him to do at home.

Bao Sir was very busy, mopping the floor and cleaning the windows.

At this time, in the SCI office downstairs, Jiang Ping had successfully restored the surveillance footage, but he waited and waited and Zhan Zhao and the others didn't come back, so he was a bit puzzled.

Xiao Bai Chi said that he would go upstairs to get them.

But when he arrived upstairs, he saw Zhan Zhao, Bai Yutang and Zhao Jue watching Bao Sir clean.

Xiao Bai Chi was also confused and messaged Jiang Ping about the situation.

One after another, the rest of SCI also came up. They all stood at the door of the elevator and didn't dare to come out because Bao Sir had mopped the floor too clean. If they stepped out and made shoe prints, would they be scolded?

From eight o'clock until nine-thirty, after an hour and a half, the whole hallway looked brand new, even the windows were wiped, and the floor tiles were shiny.

Zhao Jue held the wall and laughed so hard that he was already dying.

When finished with all this, Bao Sir washed his hands and walked back to the office. He went to the sofa, sat down, then laid down, covered himself with his suit jacket, and stopped moving.

The entire SCI crowd plus Zhao Jue surrounded the door. Gongsun and the others came up late and thought that Bao Sir had been hypnotised, and they all thought that it was Zhao Jue who had done it... Zhan Zhao estimated that he didn't have the guts to do it.

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "What should we do?"

Zhan Zhao was still doing his subliminal research on Bao Sir, "Surprisingly, only one layer has been cleaned..."

As the group of people were arguing noisily at the door, Bai Chi suddenly signalled for everyone to look quickly – Bao Sir had woken up!

Everyone subconsciously turned back to look in the office.

Sure enough, they saw that on the sofa, Bao Sir frowned and slowly opened his eyes.

Sitting up from the sofa, Bao Sir reached out and rubbed his neck, finding his back sore.

Raising his head, he saw that the clock on the wall was approaching ten o'clock, and he was surprised – He fell asleep?!

As soon as he turned his head, he was shocked... to see that the door was full of people.

After settling his mind, he realised that it was the SCI crowd, as well as Zhao Jue, all of whom stood in the doorway with their eyes wide open and foolish expressions on their faces.

Bao Sir was puzzled and asked, "What are you doing? Finished eating?"

Everyone nodded.

Bao Zheng frowned, "What happened?"

"Bao Sir?" Zhan Zhao asked him, "Do you remember what you just did?"

Bao Zheng stood up, grabbed his jacket and keys and prepared to go home, asking Zhan Zhao as he did so, "What did I do? I was sleeping."

As he spoke, Bao Zheng walked out of the office, looked up at the hallway and froze slightly. Then he smiled and nodded his head, seemingly satisfied, "Mhmm! That's more like it."

After saying that, he turned around and was about to leave, before the crowd rushed up to stop him.

......

After bringing Bao Zheng back to his office, Zhan Zhao played the video he had just recorded to show him, and this time, Bao Sir's entire body froze.

After coming to terms with reality properly, Bao Zheng suddenly had a feeling of being in the gutter – To think that even Zhao Jue hadn't hypnotised him back then! Surprisingly, he was caught by a painting.

Everyone else in SCI tacitly refrained from commenting and tried to be as "busy" as possible, except for Zhao Jue who was noisily sending out messages.

At this time, everyone was deeply interested in the two paintings.

Zhao Hu and the others looked left and right.

Compared to the painting belonging to Wang Meiyun before, these paintings didn't give people that creepy feeling. However, the painting techniques were very similar. The paintings used a lot of blue and purple blocks, which did look a bit dreamy, and the work was signed by Flower Vine J.

"Are these paintings that powerful?" Hu Zi didn't seem very convinced.

Bao Sir was depressed, and Zhan Zhao asked him to carefully recall what he had just felt.

Bao Zheng thought back and said that at that time, he was just a little sleepy... and then he couldn't open his eyelids. As a result, he naturally fell asleep, and when he woke up, in addition to being a little tired, there was nothing particularly uncomfortable.

Zhan Zhao studied that painting, "Sleepy..."

Bai Yutang asked, "Is it because he was sleepy and looked at this painting that caused him to sleepwalk, or was it simply looking at this painting that caused him to be sleepy and then sleepwalk?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, who had their heads bowed as they chatted, both nodded, "Good question!"

"Boss."

At this time, Jiang Ping called Bai Yutang over to look at the video that had been recovered.

Judging from the overwriting of the surveillance recordings, the time when the suspect snuck into Wang Meiyun's house to steal the painting was in the early hours of the day before yesterday.

The surveillance wasn't shut off, it was simply overwritten. In Jiang Ping's words, the other party's hacking techniques were average and not too clever.

The surveillance captured a van parked in front of Wang Meiyun's house at around three o'clock in the morning that day. Three men dressed in moving company clothes came out of the van and entered the villa with a few large kraft paper packages, and about ten minutes later, the three came out again with identically sized kraft paper packages and got into the car to leave.

Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping to zoom in on the licence plates and advertisements on the bodies of these two moving company vehicles.

It turned out that the licence plates and advertisements all pointed to the same moving company – Yongtai Moving.

"Yongtai..." Bai Yutang muttered to himself.

Ma Han also heard it, so he looked up and said, "Those cardboard boxes in the storage room of Li Feng's house just now..."

Bai Yutang also noticed that on the cardboard boxes in the storage room of Li Feng's house, there was the logo of this Yongtai moving company.

Bai Yutang tapped Jiang Ping and asked him to investigate this moving company.

Originally, he thought that this was it for the clues in the video, but Jiang Ping said, "Boss, someone else was captured on film, but I don't know if it's a coincidence or not."

Bai Yutang asked, "Who?"

Jiang Ping clipped an image to show Bai Yutang.

Right away, he saw that the image showed Wang Meiyun's house's villa. There was a man wandering around the villa, appearing three times at different points in time.

Seeing this man, Bai Yutang frowned, "Zhou Ping?"

Hearing this name, Zhan Zhao also looked up and asked, "Zhou Ping? That reporter?"

Bai Yutang nodded.

Zhan Zhao put down the painting and walked over to watch the video with Bai Yutang.

Sure enough, Zhou Ping was seen sneaking around the villa, seemingly waiting.

"There's also this part." Jiang Ping had already picked out all the footage where Zhou Ping appeared.

He clicked on a segment for Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao to see.

In the footage, Zhou Ping was standing in front of Wang Meiyun's house.

Wang Meiyun herself even came out, the two of them were talking through the iron fence. Looking at the footage, Wang Meiyun seemed to be quite agitated, and the two of them seemed to have quarrelled.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other – This reporter was so coincidentally at the Four Seasons Hotel, and Wang Meiyun's matter was exposed by him. It's very abnormal for an investigative journalist to write entertainment gossip news...

"Should we ask Wang Meiyun first?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhan Zhao, however, proposed to ask Qian Fu before asking Wang Meiyun.

Bai Yutang thought it would be fine to ask anyone, and listening to Zhan Zhao's opinion, they should ask Qian Fu first.

Bai Yutang asked Ma Han and Zhao Hu to go to the detention room and bring the man over.

......

About ten minutes later, Ma Han and Zhao Hu called.

Bai Yutang frowned, it was a bit abnormal – what was the point of calling halfway through bringing the man back?

Picking up the phone, luckily, Ma Han and Zhao Hu didn't say that Qian Fu had died in the detention room or that something had gone wrong, but instead said another strange thing.

"That hitman who killed Li Feng had a visitor just now."

"Visitor?" Bai Yutang asked, "A family member?"

The answer Zhao Hu gave made Bai Yutang feel even more baffled. The one who came to ask to see that killer just now was actually Zhou Ping, but the detention centre refused because Zhou Ping was a reporter.

Bai Yutang frowned.

Zhan Zhao asked, "Zhou Ping didn't say why he wanted to see the murderer?"

"Not specifically." Ma Han held a business card given to him by the police officer on duty and said, "Zhou Ping also left his contact information, saying that it would be fine to give it to the murderer or to SCI."

"What the hell?" Bai Yutang told them to bring Qian Fu over first.

As soon as the phone was hung up on this side, the elevator doors at the entrance opened.

However, it wasn't Zhao Hu and Ma Han who came, but Zhan Qitian.

Zhan Zhao was puzzled, why did his dad come?

However, Zhan Qitian didn't come to see Zhan Zhao, but to see Bao Zheng.

Bao Zheng glared at Zhao Jue.

Zhan Qitian came over to ask about Bao Zheng's state, and checked with Zhao Jue, asking if there would be any after-effects or anything like that.

At the same time, he didn't forget to gossip and said that he wanted to take a look at the paintings.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both watched, they were quite concerned about Bao Sir!

While chatting, the elevator door opened again. This time it was Zhao Hu and Ma Han who came, and the two of them brought along Qian Fu, who was yawning.

Zhao Hu signalled to Bai Yutang and they went to the interrogation room first.

Bai Yutang then waved to Zhan Zhao.

The two were about to go talk to Qian Fu when Zhan Qitian suddenly asked Zhan Zhao, "Is that person the one who shouted that the lizardman was going to kill him on the bridge this afternoon?"

Zhan Zhao nodded.

"Is his name Qian Fu?" Zhan Qitian suddenly asked.

"Dad, you know him?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

Zhan Qitian frowned and asked Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "Aren't you guys investigating some pharmacist? There's a fourteen-day time limit, does this person have something to do with the pharmacist's case?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both felt that although they hadn't investigated it clearly yet, it was almost definitely related.

"I don't have much of an impression of Qian Fu, but I have a deeper impression of his younger brother Qian Yu."

Hearing Zhan Qitian's words, everyone felt that this name obtained by Qian Fu's parents was really simple and crude, the brothers' surname was Qian and they were called Fuyu... (Angel: The Qian in their name is 钱, which means money, and fuyu, 富裕, means richness or wealth.)

"What's the situation with his brother?" Zhan Zhao and the others haven't investigated Qian Fu in detail yet because he wasn't much of a suspect before this and there were just too many things that needed to be investigated...

"His brother Qian Yu has a serious mental illness." Zhan Qitian said, "I previously handled a case where I prosecuted his brother for injuring someone, but the prosecution was later unsuccessful because he was assessed to be mentally ill, and Qian Yu is now in a mental hospital."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang felt that this case didn't seem to have much connection to the case they were handling.

"Do you guys know what Qian Yu's illness is?" Zhan Qitian's words were clearly not finished.

"What?"

"He has severe delusional disorder," Zhan Qitian said, "insisting that the lizardmen are trying to kill him and that his life is being monitored by aliens."

Everyone frowned – This was indeed a bit of a coincidence... Was it possible that this disease ran in the family?

"That's why when I saw the news about Qian Fu on TV just now, I thought of his brother." Zhan Qitian said, "But Qian Fu's state seems to be an act, Qian Yu is far more serious than him."

"How serious?" Zhan Zhao was naturally interested in special cases.

"Qian Yu is basically in a state where he is unable to rest, and he is severely sleep deprived and nervous." When Zhan Qitian said this, he changed his tone, "But..."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at him – But what?

Zhan Qitian said with some hesitation, "At that time, I felt that... there might actually be someone watching him."

‿︵‿︵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 17, 2024 by Angel

Edited: July 11, 2024 by Angel