S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 181.B

Special Files – Witches 28.B – Author's Note

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Angel: The author's note on this chapter was a large summary of the case so far and was about as long as an actual chapter, so I decided just to post it as its own post.

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The author has something to say:

Previously:

The main storyline of this case is SCI and Zhao Jue searching for the out-of-control "seventh generation" experimental subjects.

Everything was triggered by Xu Lie's movie crew finding several corpses in a cornfield.

The main members of Xu Lie's film crew:

Female lead Su Feifei (key figure in this case): Su Feifei's real identity is a movie star, who has just recovered from depression due to the death of her family.

Suspected identity: Su Feifei suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and her other identity might be the missing Shen Yan.

Male second lead Tony: A tall, mixed-race actor who is very superstitious about crystal fortune-telling. He claims to have psychic powers and can see the "spectrum."

Villain actor Lin Tian: A fierce-looking but very good-tempered man who is a doting father.

The first event was the "hanged corpses in the cornfield case."

Main characters: Fang Dongshun, Wang Aizhen, Du Ping, Mei Wen.

Fang Dongshun and Mei Wen had an affair behind their spouses' backs and secretly planned to eliminate their spouses.

When Fang Dongshun took his son to Ding Liying's (whose real identity was Dr Ding Ying, the head of the seventh-generation experiments) psychology clinic for treatment, he encountered a mysterious "intern". Under the intern's suggestion and guidance, the cunning Fang Dongshun orchestrated a "perfect murder". He killed his wife, Wang Aizhen, and Mei Wen's husband, Du Ping, and hung their bodies in the cornfield.

However, the case was cracked by Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue due to a "timing" flaw. Despite Fang Dongshun's attempts to mislead everyone, Zhao Jue effortlessly exposed his lies and sketched the portrait of the "intern".

Dr Ding Ying, who was involved in this case, also died in the cornfield. The real culprit had "reprocessed" the bodies of Du Ping and Wang Aizhen, leaving behind dandelions and some clues that pointed to the "out-of-control" seventh-generation experimental subject, whom Ding Ying had previously sought Zhao Jue's help to find.

The second event was the "case of the five members of the Shen family."

Main characters:

The five members of the Shen family, Gui Jiali, Hou Yingqi, the "Leapfrog Killer."

After obtaining the suspected portrait of the "seventh generation", everyone suspected the person had disguised themselves. With Zhao Jue's introduction, they found Gui Jiali, a mortuary makeup artist.

Through Gui Jiali's professional "makeup removal", Zhao Jue modified the portrait.

The resulting portrait turned out to be a long-wanted fugitive, a serial killer known as the "Leapfrog Killer".

The Leapfrog Killer's crimes were committed near the cornfield. Gui Jiali also mentioned that there were frequent strange cases in that area, particularly drawing her attention to the Shen family's disappearance five years ago. She also called in Hou Yingqi, a self-media content creator who had nearly lost her life investigating this case.

The case of the five members of the Shen family referred to:

Shen Xin, former cement factory owner.

Shen Xin's mother, who was in her seventies.

Shen Xin's second wife, Lu Hui.

Shen Xin's eldest daughter, sixteen-year-old Shen Yan (born to his first wife, Wang Hua).

Shen Xin's youngest son, six-year-old Shen Mingming (born to Lu Hui).

This family of five lived in a villa near the cornfield and disappeared collectively one night five years ago without any warning.

Not far from the villa, at Sanbo Bridge, the guardrail was broken, suggesting a vehicle had plunged into the lake.

But despite the police's efforts to dredge the lake for days, they found no vehicle until years later, when a vehicle was found in a fish pond completely unconnected to the lake.

There were four bodies in the car, but Shen Xin's eldest daughter, Shen Yan, was not among them.

Shen Yan's biological mother had once hired Hou Yingqi to investigate Shen Yan's whereabouts, but she terminated the investigation after failing to find her daughter, claiming her daughter was dead and requesting Gui Jiali to make a fake corpse of her daughter to be cremated with the other four bodies, which aroused Gui Jiali's suspicion.

Hou Yingqi's detailed investigation into the case of the disappearance of the five members of the Shen family revealed the following clues:

1. The strange family photo.

Three days before their disappearance, the Shen took an eerie family photo. In the photo, all five people had expressionless faces. Someone had used invisible ink to draw skeletons on the four people except Shen Yan, with each skeleton missing a bone. The bodies later retrieved from the water were also missing bones in the same places. Moreover, a dandelion was drawn on the back of the photo.

2. The Shen family's basement.

Beneath the Shen family's villa basement, there was a hidden pink-themed, girly basement, almost completely isolated from the outside world and very new, almost as if it had never been lived in.

3. The mysterious triangular area where the Shen family resided.

The Shen family's villa, the cornfield, and Sanbo Bridge... this area formed a strange triangular zone where multiple bizarre murder cases had occurred over the past half-century.

4. Shen Yan's diary.

Shen Yan had once approached Zhan Zhao at a book signing event and asked him about "cyclical dreams and sleepwalking." Zhan Zhao had given her his phone number, but she never contacted him again (the page in the diary where Zhan Zhao wrote his number was torn out, leaving only half of his signature).

Zhan Zhao had overheard her calling someone, mentioning "Let's arrange a time to go together..."

The diary's main subject was not "I," but "she," with numerous entries like "She came, she left, she listened to this music."

Neighbours mentioned that strange vehicles often parked in front of the Shen family home, but they never saw any specific "guest."

5. Shen Jinmei, the "witch" in the Shen family genealogy.

Over fifty years ago, Shen Jinmei raised several children alone. Her youngest daughter drowned due to bullying by some village boys. It was said that Shen Jinmei used witchcraft to revive her daughter, with an elderly witness named Old Chen, who was in his eighties.

The six boys who caused the little girl's death also died one after another. Several witnesses claimed to have seen the "ghost" of Shen Jinmei's youngest daughter following those boys.

6. The cement factory murder case.

There was a conveyor belt accident at Shen Xin's cement factory, where a worker fell and died. Witnesses claimed that the "perpetrator" was a little girl.

7. The mysterious email.

Hou Yingqi received a mysterious email with hypnotic suggestions while investigating the Shen family disappearance case. The email detailed how to "summon" the witch.

Daring as ever, Hou Yingqi followed the instructions in the email and performed the "summoning," only to fall under hypnosis and think she had encountered a ghost, almost losing her life.

On a psychologist's advice, Hou Yingqi went abroad for recuperation. Upon returning, she discovered she was being followed.

Zhao Jue took her in at his home and cooperated with her.

The third event was the "Xiao Yumi" case.

During an overnight shoot by Xu Lie's crew, Su Feifei disappeared. SCI and Zhao Jue found the unconscious Su Feifei in the Shen family's mysterious basement.

When she woke up, she claimed to be Shen Yan, with Shen Yan's behaviour and memories.

Shen Yan's biological mother, Wang Hua, visited SCI and told them that although Su Feifei was indeed her daughter, it was not her daughter's personality.

According to Wang Hua, the Shen family had a hereditary dissociative identity disorder, and the personalities of Shen Jinmei and her youngest daughter had been passed down through generations. She said that the original personalities of Shen Xin and Shen Yan had been devoured by these two witches.

DNA comparison revealed no match between Su Feifei and Wang Hua, indicating they were not biologically related, but multiple samples of Su Feifei's DNA were found in Shen Yan's room, indicating she had indeed lived there a long time ago. Wang Hua insisted that Shen Yan was her biological daughter.

A mysterious person delivered a baby with a congenital heart defect to the Bai family, addressed to Xu Lie.

The baby, called "Xiao Yumi," bore the mark of a "seventh-generation finished product" and was immediately thrown out of a building by a fake doctor upon arrival at the hospital. Fortunately, Su Feifei and Mia saved the baby together.

Su Feifei demonstrated her multiple personalities to Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue.

The personalities currently present were:

1. The Manager: Su Yun (claiming to be Su Feifei's sister), referred to as "Auntie" by other personalities. Auntie warned everyone that "things outside are chaotic" and urged them to protect Xiao Yumi.

2. (In charge of violence) Fan: A violent teenager.

3. (In charge of pain) Mi.

There were also the somewhat disobedient Shen Yan and the gentle Su Feifei (it was yet to be determined which of these was the primary personality).

The fourth event: the S University campus murder case.

Characters:

Zhao Li: A freshman at S University who, after drinking, accepted a dare to go to a remote mountain and place pinecones from a pine tree behind a lonely grave onto the tombstone and take a photo. She encountered the Leapfrog Killer, screamed, and ran away, but was saved by a passerby.

Chen Yan: The senior who gave Zhao Li the dare. He was later found dead in the university's artificial lake, with signs of a blow to the back of his head.

Wang Zhengyu: A campus forum poster who claimed to have seen Chen Yan in the early morning and photographed him with a girl following him. He disappeared after posting this and was later found in the school hospital, saying he had been knocked out and his phone with the photos was missing.

SCI members found the lonely grave Zhao Li was supposed to visit and discovered it was a grave built by Shen Jinmei for her daughter Shen Yan. Digging it up, they found a little stone coffin with strange carvings. However, funeral expert Zhang Yu identified these as forgeries, not a fifty or sixty-year-old grave, but a newly made one.

Further details:

Zhao Zhen saw a figure near the Shen family home resembling the Leapfrog Killer. In the area where the figure was spotted, two pinecones with Xu Lie's fingerprints were found.

The personality representing violence said to Zhao Jue, "The same flavour," which Zhao Jue understood, but Zhan Zhao did not.

Su Feifei, though unrelated by blood to Xiao Yumi, risked her life to save the baby. Su Yun, the personality manager, stated that none of the personalities she managed were responsible and mentioned that "Shen Yan isn't very obedient."

Zhan Zhao asked Ma Xin if Su Feifei was "stable," to which Ma Xin replied that Su Feifei had a simple personality with a youthful feel.

The carvings on the fake stone coffin resembled the winding mountain road and landscaping seen from afar, resembling lines and eyes.

The two corpses in the cornfield were accessorised with snake and sun symbols.

The oil painting suspected to have been created by the seventh generation as a child depicted a queen battling a wizard in a forest. In the wizard's crystal ball were hanged bodies, and four symbols appeared: sun, mountain, snake, and spiral.

Xiao Yumi and Bai Ye both had "perfect" marks. Xiao Yumi had the "seventh generation perfect" mark, while Bai Ye had just the "perfect" mark... both marks were similar spirals.

‿︵‿︵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: June 18, 2024 by Angel

Edited: December 19, 2024 by Soojin