S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 90

Countdown from the Murderer 20 – Corner

---

Zhou Ming gave Zhan Zhao and the others some information that they normally wouldn't be able to access and put forward some of his own opinions. Of course, he also said that he was just guessing.

Zhan Zhao asked if he had any of Flower Vine J's paintings in his hand.

Zhou Ming said no, and that people in the art circle or collection circle usually don't collect this kind of thing, because there is no room for appreciation and the level of skill in painting isn't high, so buying it could easily cause trouble for yourself.

"Then is there anyone collecting these paintings?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhou Ming was a little troubled, "No matter what you collect, it's a commercial activity nowadays. When you say someone is collecting something, a lot of it is just rumours that are released. It might be someone who wants to sell something and is trying to raise the price first, so it's not accurate. I can go to ask around, but to be honest, if someone really wants to collect something, they won't announce it everywhere, because once the news leaks, it'll be easy for people to snatch it up and raise the price."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both helpless – The gains were minimal.

Zhou Ming finished and went downstairs to do his own work.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue asked Jiang Ping to search for the organisation Zhou Ming had just mentioned.

Jiang Ping knew something about it, and gave the two of them a brief explanation. He said that it was a form of co-authored novels, where everyone writes together and gradually builds up a complete worldview, creating various stories about the various members of the organisation.

The more Zhan Zhao read, the more interested he became, and he felt it was worth studying.

However, before he could read it properly, Bai Yutang's voice rang in his ears, "There are still thirteen days left."

Zhan Zhao instantly pivoted and hurriedly put down the tablet to follow Bai Yutang.

......

Right now, SCI has four people to question, Wang Meiyun, an assassin, Qian Fu, and the journalist Zhou Ping who sent himself to their door.

Zhan Zhao did some calculations and felt that it was not certain if they could finish questioning these four people today, not to mention running to the mental hospital to investigate Qian Yu. One way or another, it was another day that might be wasted, so he was a bit annoyed.

Bai Yutang asked him who he was going to question first.

Zhan Zhao asked, "Do you have a suggestion?"

Bai Yutang nodded and said to ask Zhou Ping first.

It just so happened that Zhan Zhao also had this idea.

Before entering, Bai Yutang asked Ma Han to send a picture of this assassin to Eleven to see if he could identify him.

Ma Han went to do that.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang entered the interrogation room, where Zhou Ping was drinking milk tea and praising SCI's milk tea as being particularly good.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang sat down opposite him.

Zhou Ping put away his jokes and changed his expression to something a little more serious, saying, "It was indeed not by chance that I was at the Four Seasons Hotel that day. I was investigating something, so I was following a person."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at him – Who?

Zhou Ping smiled helplessly and replied, "Mark Fan."

Zhou Ping saying this really surprised Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang. They thought that he was specifically watching Qian Fu or Wang Meiyun, or even watching Li Feng... Surprisingly, he was watching Mark Fan?

Just as they were worried that this case was not connected to Mark Fan, justice suddenly fell from the sky.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both grew spirited and asked him to elaborate.

"I am investigating Mark Fan because of a coincidence." Zhou Ping elaborated, "I have a neighbour in my hometown called Liu Da who works as a nurse in a mental hospital in S City. A while ago, I went back to my hometown and met him, and when we drank together, he told me something about one of his patients."

Obviously, Zhou Ping's "story" was quite detoured, but Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both listened to him carefully.

"Liu Da told me that amongst the several patients under his care, there was one that was very strange." Zhou Ping described it to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "This patient spends the whole day just saying that he's being stalked and that there are aliens spying on him, always spouting nonsense."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other when they heard this, and probably guessed who it was.

Zhou Ping didn't hold back when he saw the two men's eyes, "That's right, he was talking about Qian Fu's younger brother, Qian Yu."

Zhou Ping continued, "I initially thought it was nothing, he's a mental patient! It's normal to have some sort of strange behaviour. It might be some sort of persecution paranoia, this symptom of feeling watched is actually quite common, right?"

Zhan Zhao nodded, indeed.

"But what Liu Da told me afterwards made me suspicious." Zhou Ping said, "Liu Da said that Qian Yu was very good at painting, and he always created some rather creepy paintings. There was a series of them, where the paintings were of someone hiding in a dark corner to spy on him. Those paintings looked very creepy, and it was never clear whether it was a person or a monster hiding in the dark corners."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang thought back to the painting that Wang Meiyun had asked Qian Fu to find – Hearing the description, it was somewhat similar.

"One night, one of Liu Da's colleagues said that he couldn't find his flashlight. He had just gone to a few rooms to deliver medicine and he might have forgotten it somewhere, so he wanted to check the surveillance. Because Liu Da is the head nurse, he has the authority to check the monitor. However, the hospital regulations do not allow you to view the surveillance system after hours, and at that time, it was right after the end of the day shift. Under that nurse's request for help, Liu Da still took him to check the surveillance, and the result... was that when they were checking room by room, they checked Qian Yu's room and saw that Qian Yu was not resting, but was sitting on the bed, staring at the corner of the room. Then both of them also looked at the corner of the room, but because of the angle of the camera, that corner was not in the picture. Liu Da didn't pay too much attention to it and thought that Qian Yu might be sick again, but that colleague of his suddenly pointed to the corner and asked him to take a closer look."

Saying this, Zhou Ping paused for a moment, as if asking Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang – Guess, what did they see?

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang gave him an urging look, telling him to hurry up and speak.

Zhou Ping moved forward and said, "They both saw a shadow."

"A shadow?"

Zhou Ping nodded, "There should have been something of considerable size standing in the corner of the room at that time, blocking the light and creating such a shadow. The weirdest thing is that the shadow would move, and it was moving slowly without regularity. If you look closely, you will find that Qian Yu was staring closely at that thing, and when that shadow moved, Qian Yu's gaze would follow."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang imagined the scene and felt that it was a bit bizarre and unbelievable, so they asked, "Are you sure it wasn't something blocking it? Like hanging clothes or something like that?"

Zhou Ping signalled for the two to take it easy, he hadn't finished yet.

"Liu Da was terrified at the time. In comparison, his colleague's courage was relatively big and he suggested that they should go and take a look. After that, the two left the surveillance room. Liu Da decided to pretend that it hadn't happened, and also thought that it might have just been clothes or a bath towel or something that happened to be hanging there. Yet at the same time, he chose to take a look..."

Saying this, Zhou Ping picked up the milk tea and took another sip.

"Liu Da didn't pay too much attention to this matter after that and went home after work, but two days later, he found out that that colleague hadn't appeared again, so he asked the others. The answer he got turned out to be – that colleague resigned."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned – Suddenly resigned?

"Liu Da then had some suspicions in his heart, and when he asked, no one knew the reason. He was on the night shift again the next day, so he quietly went to look at the surveillance footage of that day... but strangely enough, all the videos of Qian Yu's room from before were deleted. And when he accessed the surveillance feed of Qian Yu's room again, he found that the camera angle had been adjusted and could no longer capture the area where they saw the shadow."

Bai Yutang felt that this was a bit too obvious, and it seemed that something was indeed captured before.

Zhou Ping continued, "Liu Da couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried. In the end, he took advantage of a day off to look for his former colleague. But the result was as if that person had evaporated from the face of the earth. He moved out of the employee dormitory without explaining where he was going. No one answered the phone at his hometown, and the address provided was incorrect. Originally, everyone had contact information, but all of that person's contact information seems to have disappeared."

"Ai."

Zhou Ping sighed, "As you know, when a journalist is in this line of work, they tend to be a bit more curious, especially me, my character is like this. This matter successfully aroused my desire to investigate. After a little bit of digging, I found out that Qian Yu had once suffered a lawsuit, and because of his mental illness, he was not jailed, but was instead required to be admitted to a hospital for treatment. The earliest person to diagnose Qian Yu with mental illness was Mark Fan, and he also treated his paranoia for a period of time, but the result was that his condition did not get better, instead, it intensified, and there were incidents of people being injured. While Mark Fan was running a private clinic, I believe that psychiatric hospital hired him as a consultant and he would frequently go to participate in some research projects. In addition, Mark Fan has sent in roughly four patients with the same illness, all with very similar conditions to Qian Yu."

This point also caused Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang to be a little shocked. They had previously investigated a lot about Mark Fan's background, but there was no official record of him having an employment relationship with that psychiatric hospital, which meant that the hospital's side had concealed this matter.

Bai Yutang frowned and looked at Zhan Zhao – That assistant of Mark Fan's, Nurse Jin, hadn't mentioned this either.

Zhan Zhao nodded – Could it be that she didn't know either?

Bai Yutang felt it was unlikely.

"I happened to have nothing to do during this period of time as well, so I watched Mark Fan for a while. That room at the Four Seasons Hotel has a particularly clear view of the clinic, so I stayed there and squatted." Zhou Ping gave a wicked smile, "Probably because I am more experienced, I soon found out that Mark Fan and Wang Meiyun also had dealings, and the two of them always arranged to meet at a nearby café. At the same time, Wang Meiyun was also fooling around with Qian Fu in the Four Seasons Hotel, and this Qian Fu was also Qian Yu's brother... Do you guys think there are such coincidences in this world?"

"What else did you discover?" Bai Yutang felt that since Zhou Ping had been watching Mark Fan for so long, he might have found some useful information.

"I didn't find anything on Mark Fan. He seems to have been helping cover for Wang Meiyun." Zhou Ping spread his hands, "He came to the hotel maybe once. It turns out that that kid was quite unlucky, he was hit on that hill and suffered a pretty bad fall."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both froze and looked at him together, "He was hit? When?"

Zhou Ping touched his chin, "The afternoon of the day before yesterday... Around four or five o'clock in the evening, I saw him coming to the Four Seasons Hotel, but he didn't stay long. When he was going downhill, there was a delivery guy on a bicycle behind him who couldn't stop the bike and bumped into him. That little brother is simply... I've seen him delivering food, I don't know how many people he's bumped into on that slope."

"Did you see a medicine bottle?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked in unison.

"Uh..." Zhou Ping thought for a moment, "Oh... Mark Fan did seem to have dropped something, and that little brother helped pick it up. "

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other, "Can you remember what that little brother looks like?"

Zhou Ping looked suspiciously at the suddenly excited two and nodded, "... I probably can."

‿︵‿︵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 22, 2024 by Angel

Edited: August 1, 2024 by Angel