S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 187

Special Files – Witches 34 – Protégé

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Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue asked Guan Yi if she had ever seen the person who first painted this painting. Guan Yi nodded.

"Where did you see them?" Zhan Zhao was excited – They finally had a lead! They had been investigating for so long.

But Guan Yi's answer was, "He's already dead."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue were furious – Dead?!

"How did he die?" Bai Yutang asked. "Heart disease?"

Guan Yi nodded. "It wasn't that Ding Ying let him die because he was uncontrollable, the illness was simply too severe to treat."

"When did this happen?"

"Er... five years ago... about five or six years." Guan Yi took out her phone, searched for something, pulled up a document, and handed it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao saw that the folder Guan Yi pulled up was titled "Medical Records" and asked, "Did you treat him?"

"For a long time," Guan Yi replied, with some regret. "To put it bluntly, it's a good thing he passed away early."

"That dangerous?" Bai Yutang asked.

Guan Yi seemed to recall something that made her shudder. "How should I put it? He was a serial killer in the making."

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue – Could something like this really be nurtured?

Zhan Zhao was flipping through the medical records and nodded towards Zhao Jue, signalling him to explain.

Zhao Jue cooperated and, propping his chin, explained to Bai Yutang, "It's like a tiger raised among sheep. The key is whether it has eaten the first sheep. Serial killers aren't born criminals. As long as they don't kill their first victim, their dangerous thoughts just circulate in their minds. If they are controlled their whole life and never take that first step, they won't harm anyone."

"Was your treatment effective?" Bai Yutang asked Guan Yi.

Guan Yi sighed, "I treated him regularly for a long time, and combined with his poor health, he lost almost all his mobility after reaching mental maturity... and I found him a good outlet."

"An outlet?" Zhao Jue thought for a moment and asked, "Painting?"

Guan Yi nodded, "Mhmm."

Zhan Zhao opened a folder labelled "Works" in the medical records, and Bai Yutang glanced over.

Thinking of the works of someone with a tendency to become a serial killer, Bai Yutang expected them to be terrifying... but he was stunned at first glance – The man painted classical oil paintings, very clean and bright, and though realistic, they were fantastical and very narrative.

Zhan Zhao sighed in admiration, "A true genius."

Bai Yutang couldn't figure it out, "With such talent, why didn't he become a painter instead of a potential serial killer? Was it a mental illness?"

"By that logic, all bad deeds could be attributed to mental illness. If it was just a desire for violence, he could punch a sandbag at home, stab a pillow with a knife, break dishes... there are many ways to release violent desires without harming people. Most serial killers are intelligent, they know what they are doing is wrong and illegal," Zhao Jue smiled slightly. "Ultimately, their true desire is to hurt others, and all reasons are just excuses. Rather than calling them patients, they should be called bad people."

"So this seventh generation... although he wanted to harm people, he was restrained by external forces and his illness," Bai Yutang asked, "So is he a good person or a bad person?"

Guan Yi shook her head, "This seems more like a philosophical question than a psychological one. Someone who wants to do bad things but hasn't done them, is he good or bad?"

Zhao Jue smiled, "Whether he did it or not, and whether he wanted to or not, isn't the key point for the seventh generation."

"Then what is?" Even Guan Yi was curious.

"The key is whether he was ill or not, it doesn't necessarily affect his ability to do bad things," Zhao Jue reminded Guan Yi. "Even with your treatment, Ding Ying's monitoring, and his poor health requiring bed rest... it doesn't mean he couldn't or wasn't capable of doing bad things."

Guan Yi frowned, "You think he's related to the case you're investigating? But he's already dead."

"Maybe he really is connected."

Zhan Zhao pulled up a painting and handed it to Bai Yutang.

It was a painting of human skeletons, with five different skeletons standing in a row.

Bai Yutang found the scene familiar.

Zhan Zhao took out his phone and opened some evidence he had previously photographed during Hou Yingqi's investigation of the Shen family disappearance case, including a family photo.

In the family photo, the five members of the Shen family each had skeletal diagrams drawn on them with invisible ink... and except for Shen Yan, the other four were missing a bone... corresponding to the four skeletons found in the submerged car in the fishpond. These missing bones had recently been found in a seemingly fake "Shen Yan tomb" in a stone coffin.

"What do you think?" Zhan Zhao asked Zhao Jue. "Could the Leapfrog Killer be his disciple?"

Zhao Jue nodded, "It's possible, and maybe not just an admirer but a student."

"Indicating they had some form of long-term contact," Zhan Zhao asked Guan Yi. "During your monitoring of the seventh generation, did you find him contacting Shen Bin? If not meeting, letters or emails could be possible."

Guan Yi frowned and shook her head, recalling, "It's unlikely someone like that could exist without us noticing any clues..."

"Maybe they met when he was in the hospital," Zhao Jue speculated. "You might have let your guard down while he was bedridden."

"Could he have faked his illness?" Guan Yi, being a top psychologist, quickly pieced things together and realised the implications, "This is bad..."

Zhan Zhao pulled up the profile of the seventh generation.

This person was named Che Dongming, and from the photo, he had the distinctive features of the seventh generation. His appearance and physique were excellent, and his IQ was very high. He had died of heart disease five years ago.

"Are you sure he's dead?" Bai Yutang suddenly asked.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue looked at him, "Do you have any reason to think he faked his death, or is it just another one of your police instincts?"

Bai Yutang casually said, "Dead or not, there's no proof now. Everything has been cremated, and the ashes can't be DNA tested, unless..."

"Unless we find the person?" Zhan Zhao thought for a moment and took the photo to the next room.

At this point, Zhou Hao was already asleep, sleeping soundly. Zhan Zhao woke him up.

Zhou Hao groggily opened his eyes, saw Zhan Zhao, and was quite speechless, "Don't you have any humanitarian spirit? I'm a patient..."

Zhan Zhao shook his phone in front of him, pointing at Che Dongming's photo, and asked, "Have you seen this person?"

Zhou Hao looked carefully and tilted his head, unsure, "Hmm... looks familiar."

"He might have appeared with Shen Bin..." Zhan Zhao just hinted, and Zhou Hao exclaimed, "Ah!"

Guan Yi was surprised, "You've really seen him?"

Zhou Hao nodded, "Mhmm..."

"He's really not dead?!" Guan Yi was excited, "How is that possible?! Could the hospital doctors' surgery be fake? It doesn't make sense..."

"Ah-hem." Zhou Hao coughed twice, interrupting his aunt's muttering. "He is indeed a dead man."

Everyone was even more surprised.

"How do you know he's dead?"

"The wallpaper on Shen Bin's phone is a photo of him with this guy," Zhou Hao said. "I saw it by chance and asked him who it was. He said it was his brother, who died of illness."

Guan Yi finally let out a breath of relief, but everyone else exchanged looks – This still didn't confirm that Che Dongming was truly dead...

Zhan Zhao suddenly thought, "Was the Leapfrog Killer's attempt to kill Wang Zhengyu at school due to a similar reason?"

Bai Yutang sent the photo of Che Dongming to Jiang Ping, asking him to see if Wang Zhengyu had seen this person.

Wang Zhengyu looked at the photo for a long time, saying it seemed familiar but he couldn't remember. Jiang Ping prompted him to think about photos or something similar...

Sure enough, once prompted, he remembered. "It's the wallpaper on Shen Bin's phone."

"If Shen Bin wanted to hide his relationship with Che Dongming, why would he use a photo with him as his wallpaper? That would make it easy for people to see..." Bai Yutang felt that that was an obvious flaw for someone as meticulous as a serial killer.

"Nah." Zhao Jue smirked, placing a hand on Bai Yutang's shoulder. "This kind is genuinely sick!"

Zhan Zhao reached out and pinched Zhao Jue's hand on Bai Yutang's shoulder, causing Zhao Jue to shake his hand in pain.

Bai Yutang ignored the two hands fighting on his shoulder and asked Guan Yi, "Do you know where Che Dongming is buried?"

"In a cemetery," Guan Yi answered, which wasn't really an answer. However, since Ding Ying handled Che Dongming's affairs, checking if Ding Ying had purchased a cemetery plot would give them the information.

Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping to investigate.

Soon, Jiang Ping sent over an address.

At that moment, hurried footsteps were heard at the door, and Hao Ling rushed in. "It's terrible!"

Everyone looked up at her.

Bai Yutang thought that the "zombies" had developed other symptoms.

But Hao Ling first ran to check on Zhou Hao's condition, followed by a group including Zhou Hao's attending doctor, whose face was ashen.

Bai Yutang's phone rang, it was Ma Xin... It turned out that Gongsun had taken the bags containing the gastric fluid vomited by the "zombies" and the saline solution that was almost administered to Zhou Hao for testing.

Ma Xin discovered that Zhou Hao's saline contained a high amount of sodium, which, if injected into his body, would have been fatal, especially since he had just undergone heart surgery.

Gongsun had called Hao Ling, asking her to check the surveillance. Hao Ling and Zhou Hao's attending doctor found that someone had injected an unknown liquid into the saline bag during the nurse's medication change.

Based on the timing and precision of his actions, it was clear he had been observing for a long time, understanding the nurse's habits and knowing exactly which medications Zhou Hao was taking...

Hao Ling showed the surveillance footage to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao. The person in the video wore a security uniform, but his face was never captured.

Security had already investigated and confirmed that no security personnel were supposed to be there at that time. The medication change occurred right after the zombie attack in the hospital. Many people were coming in and out of the hospital, and the situation was chaotic. If the person was a fake security guard, he might have escaped in the chaos.

Zhou Hao's attending doctor was furious knowing that someone had attempted to murder his patient and nearly succeeded, causing his blood pressure to rise.

The most remorseful was the nurse, who had almost become an unintentional accomplice.

Zhou Hao, however, was quite nonchalant, holding the nurse's hand and comforting her.

Looking at this carefree "seventh generation" Zhou Hao, Bai Yutang found it hard to imagine what the dangerous "seventh generation" Che Dongming was like... Were the differences within the seventh generation this vast? And if Zhou Hao was the most stable experimental subject, what were the unstable ones like?

With two patients nearly murdered in one day, the entire hospital was on high alert. As Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang walked out of the ward, they heard the medical staff whispering.

"This has never happened before."

"There's a rumour that wherever SCI goes, trouble follows."

"And Xu Lie! This isn't the first time he's been attacked by zombies!"

"Isn't Xu Lie from the Bai Group? I heard the Bai Group is pretty eerie too!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged helpless glances – It felt like their reputations were unjustly harmed!

Zhao Jue looked at the two disdainfully – Disaster magnets!

Guan Yi, who came out with them, casually remarked, "Professor, you and Bai Ye still attract trouble like this!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang raised their eyebrows at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue pouted and asked Bai Yutang for the cemetery address.

Bai Yutang opened the address sent by Jiang Ping... tapping on the map revealed that the route was familiar.

"It's close to the garbage disposal site we were at earlier," Zhan Zhao said, also finding the abandoned railway and tunnel on the map.

"The cemetery is on the mountain we saw while driving..."

"The one with the mountain road and the landscaping pattern matching the carvings on the sarcophagus?" Zhan Zhao's tone suddenly rose.

"So that's how it is," Zhao Jue laughed meaningfully.

The two stared at the map, their eyes gleaming.

"What do you mean?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Motive!" Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue said in unison.

Guan Yi, though unaware of the background, seemed to understand and clapped her hands. "Sacrifice?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue nodded. "Ritual!"

Bai Yutang looked at the three psychology enthusiasts speechlessly. "Speak Chinese."

‿︵‿︵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 23, 2024 by Angel

Edited: December 23, 2024 by Soojin