S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 95

Countdown from the Murderer 25 – Shadow

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SCI's investigation ran into trouble, and Bai Yutang wondered, how come there were people with memory problems everywhere?

In the end, everyone decided to start with Qian Yu.

Bai Yutang brought Zhan Zhao, Ma Han, Zhao Hu, and Zhao Jue, who had found a "consultant" sticker to put on his chest, to the mental hospital.

At this time, it was already close to dark. Everyone had just hurriedly eaten a meal and rushed over, and as soon as they got out of the car, they saw a balding middle-aged man in a suit walking towards them.

Bai Yutang had asked Lu Fang to contact the head of the hospital before they arrived.

This so-called mental hospital was actually not a hospital. To be more precise, it was a "scattered" research institute, with different teams in charge of different subjects. The institute just provides the space and some hardware, and doesn't care what the teams are working on.

The person who came to accompany SCI was Manager Zhu, who was in charge of the management of the institute.

Manager Zhu greeted the SCI members as if they were a business team, first bringing them to the reception room and then taking out the introduction of the institute to show them.

There were originally four teams in this institute, and their research programmes were "paranoia", "amnesia", "sleepwalking" and "cognitive impairment".

The "amnesia" team had been disbanded due to financial problems and the project was shelved, while the other three projects were still in progress, with the largest being the paranoia team.

Bai Yutang, Ma Han and Zhao Hu did not have any special thoughts, but Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue wanted to groan – What kind of categorisation is this?

"As the project funding comes from pharmaceutical companies, each team primarily focuses on developing drugs to treat similar illnesses." Manager Zhu explained, "The institute adopts experimental medical approaches, and patients voluntarily participate in treatment. Moreover, most of these patients are low-risk, not particularly dangerous. Additionally, our management is quite scientific, with no safety hazards!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both had a bit of an urge to take the photo of Su Li killing and dismembering the body and slap it on the manager's face – This wasn't even dangerous?!

"Why did the team that was researching amnesia disband?" Zhan Zhao patiently continued to ask.

"Oh, it was mainly because the samples that could be studied were too small, and amnesia is still a relatively rare condition, so the experiments could not be carried out.

"Then what about those patients who have already participated in the experiment?"

"The patients have all gone to other medical institutions to continue their treatment." Manager Zhu tentatively asked, "Is there something wrong with the amnesia research?"

"Do you have information on the medical team and patients involved in the amnesia research?" Bai Yutang didn't answer, just inquired.

"Er, since we only provide hardware facilities and don't participate in the research, we don't know the specifics." Manager Zhu introduced, "But a lot of the research team's medical care is shared, and they've participated in several other projects as well, so you guys can ask them about it later."

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao nodded – Hopefully this group of people didn't have collective amnesia.

The environment in the research institute was quite good. There was a park-like activity area, but it was dark now and there weren't many streetlights on the path, so it was pitch-black.

Zhao Hu looked around and felt creeped out, "How come there aren't even any lights?"

Manager Zhu said embarrassedly, "Oh, it's to save money. There are only a few medical and security personnel on duty at the institute at night, so there's no need to turn on the streetlights."

At the back of this small park, there were two white buildings, both three-storey buildings that occupied a large area. They were short and fat buildings, which were relatively unusual in the urban area of S City, where every inch of land was expensive.

The building on the left was lit, while the one on the right was dark.

Manager Zhu introduced that the building on the left was the patient's ward, there were people on duty at night, so the lights were on all day. The building on the right was the researchers' office area, the lights were switched off and the doors locked at night.

The medical nurses in the ward area worked in three shifts.

Bai Yutang was a bit puzzled, pointing at the ward area and asking, "Do patients involved in different projects all live together?"

"That's right." The manager nodded, "This saves costs and is convenient to manage, they are all single rooms anyway."

"What about the medical care?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"The nurses are largely shared. Most of our patients here are mildly ill, and it's relatively simple to manage." Manager Zhu led the crowd towards the ward area.

Bai Yutang, however, noticed that in the dark research building next to him, there was an office on the top floor, the third floor, with the lights on.

Bai Yutang asked Manager Zhu, "Why is that office lit?"

Manager Zhu glanced at it, shook his head and said, "Oh, they probably forgot to turn off the lights, they are like that sometimes..."

However, before he finished speaking, Bai Yutang and Ma Han, who had superb eyesight, both shook their heads, "No, there are people inside, two of them."

Zhao Hu felt as if there was a shadowy figure in front of the window, while Zhan Zhao felt that the whole window was swaying because of his astigmatism.

Zhao Jue tilted his face and yawned.

"Then... I guess someone is working overtime or forgot something." Just as Manager Zhu finished speaking, they saw the lights go out.

The manager pushed open the door to the ward area and signalled for the crowd to come in.

Bai Yutang walked at the end, looking up at the window of the room where the lights had just gone out.

Zhan Zhao asked him, "What's wrong?"

Bai Yutang frowned slightly and whispered to Zhan Zhao, "The person is still at the window."

"Hmm?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled and tilted his face to look up at the blackened windows on the third floor – How could he tell that someone was there?

Bai Yutang whispered, "You usually switch off the lights when you walk out of the room, right?"

Zhan Zhao nodded.

"But when the lights were switched off just now, there was a person standing right next to the window." Bai Yutang said, "It should be that he was originally watching us by the window, and when he realised that we were looking up, one of the people went to turn off the lights. However, the person who was originally standing by the window didn't move."

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment and asked, "So he's still standing by the window now?"

Bai Yutang turned back, "It feels like it."

After saying that, the two of them walked into the ward area together.

......

The ward area was clean and bright, with white walls and white marble floor tiles, coupled with white overhead lights, giving off a clean yet cold feeling.

As soon as he walked into the lobby, Bai Yutang looked from side to side, seemingly in some discomfort.

In the same situation as him were Ma Han and Zhao Hu.

Hu Zi was startled by a nurse who suddenly appeared behind him... His reaction also startled that nurse.

Bai Yutang felt as if he could catch glimpses of shadows lurking in the hallways or against the walls out of the corner of his eye.

"Ooh." Zhao Jue tilted his face as he observed the architecture of the ceiling and nodded, "That's kind of interesting."

Zhan Zhao also saw the "mystery" of the interior decoration.

The walls of this building had undulating three-dimensional structures, with sharp angles and edges, resembling plaster polyhedrons used for practising drawing shadows in art. Due to the lighting, although the roof was predominantly white, different surfaces illuminated differently, presenting various shades from light to dark and from white to grey. The floor, made of bright marble tiles, was spotless and reflected like a mirror. Different light sources from above, coupled with shadows cast by the walls, created various reflections and mirroring effects on the ground. In some areas, there were gloomy shadows, while in others, there were bright spots of white light. Moreover, the irregular turns in the two corridors made observant individuals like Bai Yutang, Ma Han, and Zhao Hu always feel like they could see shadows in their peripheral vision.

In addition, the white coats worn by the nurses here could blend perfectly into the pure white background. Moreover, the shoes they wore were very soft, so there was almost no sound when they walked.

On the contrary, most of the SCI crowd wore sports shoes that were convenient for running, so just like stepping onto a basketball court, there was a squeak when they took a step, which was out of place in this quiet environment.

After being scared by the two passing nurses, Zhao Hu became a bit annoyed and muttered to Ma Han, "Shit! Is this place really suitable for mental patients? A normal person would go crazy if they stayed in this damn place for a day!"

Ma Han nodded and glanced at it coldly, always wondering if there was a shadow in the corner.

Zhan Zhao asked Manager Zhu, "The interior design of this hospital, was it originally like this or was it remodelled later?"

Manager Zhu said, "It's all decorated according to the requirements, they said that it's so that patients can be easily calmed down."

"Heh."

Zhao Jue probably couldn't hold back any longer and laughed.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han were also speechless – Even those who didn't know psychology knew that this was bullshit!

Manager Zhu followed Bai Yutang's request and took the crowd to the surveillance room first.

The surveillance room here was quite large and well-equipped. The entire ward was fully covered, and each room had a camera.

In the surveillance room, in front of hundreds of screens, there were only two security guards who were drinking coffee.

When Manager Zhu came in, the two didn't care and continued to mind their own business.

Zhan Zhao noticed that both men were wearing civilian clothes, one was playing a game and the other was watching a drama, while no one was paying attention to the surveillance screens.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han both frowned – This work attitude is a bit irresponsible. If something happened to any of the patients, when would they discover it?

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, on the other hand, looked up at those screens together.

Hundreds of screens might be dazzling for ordinary people, but for these two, looking at them together was not difficult at all.

On the screens, all the rooms were installed with cameras at different angles, and the patients were wearing gowns of three colours: light blue, medium blue, and dark blue.

Zhan Zhao asked Manager Zhu, "Are the colours used to differentiate between the different patients?"

"Uh, probably..." Manager Zhu, who obviously didn't know anything about the specifics, coughed and signalled for the two people who were absent-mindedly messing around to come over and answer the question.

The one playing the game put down his phone and came over, "Light blue is cognitive impairment, medium blue is sleepwalking, and dark blue is paranoia."

Bai Yutang observed the person who stood up to speak and asked, "You're not a security guard?"

The young man smiled, "I'm a nurse, there are no security guards in the surveillance room."

As he said that, he looked at his watch, "Normally, surveillance is shut down at six, and we should've clocked out by now. We've been waiting here for you."

Zhao Hu and Ma Han both glanced at the two men – Listening to the tone of voice, they have a problem because we're delaying their clock-out time?

"Why don't you keep the surveillance on at night?" Bai Yutang asked.

The nurse spread his hands, "Patients don't want to be filmed when they're resting, so the cameras are turned off.

At this time, most of the lights in the wards were still on. Some of the patients were reading, some were watching TV, their behaviour wasn't too different from ordinary people.

Among them, there was the back of a person who was drawing a picture that attracted everyone's attention.

Bai Yutang asked the two nurses, "Is that Qian Yu?"

Both of them nodded.

Bai Yutang observed the angle from which Qian Yu's room was captured, and just like what Zhou Ping had said, they couldn't see any corners of the room from this angle at all, they could only see right in the middle.

Qian Yu was wearing a dark blue hospital gown, sitting on the floor with his back to the surveillance. In front of him was a drawing board, and he was holding a pencil in his left hand.

From the surveillance, one could roughly see what he was drawing... it was a shadowy corner.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both rubbed their chins – A corner again.

Meanwhile, Bai Yutang was also staring at the video and watching.

For some reason, he felt that to the right of Qian Yu, beyond the surveillance coverage, there should be someone standing.

‿︵‿︵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 28, 2024 by Angel

Edited: August 19, 2024 by Angel