S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 106

Screen Murderer 02 – Telephone

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Bai Yutang dragged Zhan Zhao, who was running wild, back to the office. Inside, they saw that all the members of the SCI were gathered together, as if having a meal.

Bai Chi held a pastry in one hand and was flipping through documents. When he saw Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang enter, he gestured towards the table.

There were many delicate handmade pastries on the table, and Bai Yutang asked where they came from.

"Heh heh."

Zhao Hu, whose gossip level was second only to Ma Xin's, gestured enthusiastically, "These were just brought in by Jiang Nan."

Bai Yutang understood immediately.

Approaching the table, he saw that Jiang Nan had made all sorts of small pastries, each looking exquisite.

Bai Yutang spotted an adorable cat paw cake and picked it up, handing it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took a bite, and after consuming the powdered sugar, his apparent irritability noticeably decreased, his mood transitioning from gloomy to sunny.

At that moment, they heard a commotion of footsteps in the stairwell. Gongsun happened to be coming out of the forensic room with documents in hand, and he saw the head of the economics department downstairs, Fei Mu, charging up the stairs.

Fei Mu ran out of breath, holding his phone in one hand and pointing at it with the other.

Gongsun didn't quite understand what he was trying to convey, and then he saw Fei Mu directly crash into the glass door at the entrance of the SCI office.

Fortunately, the glass door was quite sturdy. Fei Mu stumbled inside the SCI office, lunging towards Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

Both of them were startled by his sudden appearance.

"Heh... heh..." Fei Mu gasped, pointing at his phone while gasping for air, his mouth agape. "Ghost! Ghost..."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at him with puzzled expressions. "Ghost?"

Fei Mu patted his chest to catch his breath, with Xiao Bai Chi behind him helping to pat his back.

"I just... called my blind date..." Fei Mu held up his phone to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at the screen of his phone, which displayed a cutesy screensaver. "And? Did you explain?"

"N... no!" Fei Mu shook his head excitedly, "The person who answered the call, the one who answered, was a ghost! A ghost!"

The entire SCI team looked bewildered, with Ma Han even failing to grasp the situation. He asked Zhao Hu, "He said he called his blind date?"

Zhao Hu nodded.

"And a ghost answered the call?"

Zhao Hu continued to nod, "That seems to be the literal meaning..."

Bai Yutang reached out and took Fei Mu's phone, unlocked it, opened the contacts, checked the recent calls, and then put it on speakerphone.

After a couple of rings, the call connected.

A rather gentle-sounding girl picked up, "Hello?"

Everyone looked at Fei Mu.

Fei Mu heard the voice and paused for a moment, looking somewhat puzzled, tilting his head and staring at the phone.

"Hello?" The girl asked again, "Are you there?"

The rest of the SCI team looked at Fei Mu, urging him to speak.

"Um... hello." Fei Mu finally spoke up. "Oh, it's me."

"Ah," the girl responded, "is there something wrong?"

"Er..." Fei Mu seemed a bit shocked, "no... I just, uh, wanted to ask if you wanted to go see a movie this weekend?"

The girl seemed hesitant for a moment before finally saying, "Sorry, I have something to do this weekend."

"Oh, okay..." Fei Mu hurriedly hung up the phone.

The rest of the SCI team looked at him sympathetically.

Xiao Bai Chi comforted Fei Mu by patting his shoulder. "It's alright, there are plenty of fish in the sea."

Zhao Hu also suggested that he would get Qi Le to call up some girlfriends another day and take him out to dinner.

However, at that moment, Fei Mu was still in a state of confusion.

Bai Yutang, however, was somewhat curious and asked him, "What did you hear when you called earlier? Why did you say it was a ghost?"

Fei Mu thought for a moment, pinching his throat and imitating a very hoarse and deep voice, gasping for air, "Die... die..."

The others couldn't laugh or cry at Fei Mu's impersonation.

"It's even scarier than what I learned!" Fei Mu said earnestly. "It was... really eerie!"

Bai Yutang glanced at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao expressed doubt, "Could it be that you misheard? Maybe it was just background noise or something?"

Fei Mu felt dejected.

"There's another possibility."

At this moment, Jiang Ping spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him.

Jiang Ping grinned and said, "Did you perhaps offend her the last time you met? Maybe she set up a scary recording to prank you?"

Fei Mu blinked. "A scary recording..."

"Yeah, those exist," Jiang Ping nodded. "they're used for pranks."

Both Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao chimed in, "Could it be because you said she was crazy..."

"Wow, Old Fei, that's on you!" Zhao Hu put his arm around Fei Mu's shoulder, giving him a lesson. "Saying someone is crazy on the first meeting? In blind dates, you never know if the other person actually has a mental illness. If they do, pranking you with a phone call would be considered light. It could even turn fatal!"

Fei Mu was startled. "Blind dates can turn fatal?"

Bai Yutang also considered this possibility. "Exactly. You didn't believe the ghost stories she told you, so she pretended to be a ghost to scare you."

"No way..." Fei Mu patted his chest, "But the girl seemed quite introverted and honest... Could she really be that ruthless?"

"Tsk tsk." Zhao Hu continued to tease Fei Mu, "Think about it. SCI has caught so many psychopaths and serial killers. How many of them were outgoing and cheerful? They were all quiet and introverted, right?"

After Zhao Hu finished speaking, Ma Han slapped him with a folder.

Fei Mu felt even more down, "Even if I said the wrong thing, it shouldn't be like this. Is that girl antisocial or something? Besides, talking about seeing ghosts during a movie, of course, normal people wouldn't believe it."

"It's that movie-going ghost incident again."

Zhao Hu and Ma Han seemed to have heard about this before, both shaking their heads.

Zhan Zhao asked them curiously, "You two know about it too?"

"A few days ago, Le Le and her friends were spreading this story." Zhao Hu said, "It started as some sort of gimmick for a horror movie, but it became more and more believable as it spread, and there were even incidents."

"Can you be more specific?" Zhan Zhao asked for a detailed explanation.

Zhao Hu, busy munching on snacks, gestured for Ma Han to speak.

Ma Han then introduced the topic to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, saying, "I heard it from Jiayi. There was this hit horror film before, I think it was called something like Don't Open Your Eyes. The movie company promoted it with a gimmick, saying if you watched the midnight screening and closed your eyes ten seconds before midnight, then counted silently to ten and opened them, you'd see ghostly images on the screen. They also said if you saw them, you had to pretend you hadn't and couldn't make eye contact with the ghost, or it would follow you home or something... Jiayi and her friends were all spooked by it."

Zhao Hu nodded, saying that one night he scared Qi Le by claiming there were ghosts on the TV, only to get a beating from Qi Le.

Ma Han also suffered from it; these days, Jiayi wouldn't let him turn off the lights at night.

"So, what happened afterwards? What went wrong?" Zhan Zhao inquired.

Zhao Hu continued, "Oh, later on, two girls went to watch the movie at night and also tried the experiment at midnight. One claimed to have seen something while the other said she hadn't. The one who saw something got very scared, saying she not only saw but also made eye contact with the ghost. When they went back, that girl was very panicked and kept saying someone was following her. The girl who claimed she didn't see anything made it home safely, but the one who claimed to have seen the ghost got into a car accident on her way back. According to the driver who hit her, it seemed like she was being chased by someone or something, suddenly rushing out from an alley. Fortunately, the car wasn't going fast, so there were no fatalities, but the girl ended up with a fractured leg and needed rest due to the shock. Her family wanted to sue the movie company, but eventually, the production company compensated for medical expenses and emotional distress, so the matter was settled privately, and the movie was taken off the screens."

Upon hearing this, Fei Mu started to zone out again.

Zhan Zhao then asked him, "Did your blind date watch this movie too?"

Fei Mu nodded, "Yes, she said she watched it, and she also saw the ghostly figure on the screen."

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment and asked Fei Mu, "You two only met once, right? And then there was no follow-up?"

"Mhmm" Fei Mu nodded.

"Do you have her phone number saved?" Zhan Zhao inquired.

Fei Mu shook his head. He hadn't saved it, but being a mathematical genius with an exceptional memory for numbers, belonging to the same category as Xiao Bai Chi, he remembered phone numbers directly.

"I have a question," Zhan Zhao addressed the others present, "if it's a blind date, you've only met once, and things haven't progressed, would you save each other's phone numbers?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Unlikely." Zhao Hu remarked.

"What if your date made you very unhappy on the first meeting?" Zhan Zhao continued.

Everyone expressed they would delete it!

"Just now, judging by the tone," Bai Yutang also understood what Zhan Zhao was getting at, "that girl probably didn't recognize you."

Fei Mu rubbed his chin, "It seems so..."

"She didn't mention your name when she answered the phone, just said hello... Maybe she either didn't remember your number or deleted it. The number you called from might have appeared as an unknown caller to her." Zhan Zhao analysed.

"So, she might not have intentionally scared you," Zhao Hu added, "she might not even know it was you who called."

Fei Mu pondered for a moment and agreed, "So what's the deal with that call?"

Everyone asked, "Do you have a recording?"

Fei Mu shook his head.

Jiang Ping clicked his tongue, "Where would there be a blind date that isn't recorded?

Fei Mu's mouth hung open, "Huh? You're supposed to record blind dates?"

Bai Yutang shook his head somewhat incredulously and waved his hand, implying – Go downstairs quickly, maybe you misheard.

Fei Mu mumbled to himself and went downstairs, wondering if he had indeed misheard or if he had been tricked.

The others continued with their respective tasks.

At that moment, Ma Xin strolled in humming a tune, wearing a satisfied expression of having juicy gossip.

Zhao Hu waved her over and asked, "What did you find out? Any potential between them?"

Ma Xin glanced at the door to ensure no one unexpected was coming in, then lowered her voice, "Big gossip! First-hand information! Turns out, Bao Sir and Jiang Nan have been in contact ever since that case with Emilia. After Jiang Nan switched to the Bai Group recently, I don't know if it's someone from her previous company trying to mess with her, but her phone number got leaked. She sought Bao Sir's help at that time, and Bao Sir was a real hero rescuing her."

The so-called gossiping nature is inherent in everyone, so the crowd gathered around to listen.

"And there's more! Remember Jiang Nan's previous movie? She was supposed to play a policewoman, and Bao Sir served as her consultant for quite a while. Their relationship was getting stronger and stronger! Let me tell you, Jiang Nan has high standards! She doesn't want someone who's not good-looking, lacks capability, has a bad personality, can't communicate well, or is too pretentious... In these past years, there haven't been many men who could catch her eye. I tell you, it's Bao Sir's charm! Look at this! Look!"

Ma Xin continued, pointing at the small snacks on the table, "Those were all personally made by Jiang Nan! And she made double portions, one for Bao Sir, and one for everyone else. Look at how considerate she is... She's practically the perfect choice for the director's wife!"

As Ma Xin spoke enthusiastically, she noticed that the others from the SCI team were not joining in the conversation. Instead, they were looking past her, more precisely, behind her.

When Ma Xin turned around, she saw Bao Sir standing right behind her.

Ma Xin quickly covered her mouth and ran off.

Bao Sir shook his head in silence, then reached out and handed a folder to Bai Yutang, saying, "There is a case."

‿︵‿︵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: April 2, 2024 by Angel

Edited: April 4, 2024 by Angel