S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 2

The Card Murderer 02 – Scarlet Heart

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In the SCI office, Zhan Zhao stood with his arms crossed, looking helplessly at Gao Min, who had collapsed onto the sofa in a deep sleep after vomiting.

The elevator chimed as Bai Yutang walked in, carrying a bottle of water and some hangover medicine.

"This was all the restaurant had..."

Bai Yutang walked over to the sofa and saw that Gao Min was already fast asleep and wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, so he turned to Zhan Zhao and asked, "Do you know where she lives?"

Zhan Zhao spread his hands.

Bai Yutang recalled that Gao Min had always maintained a professional image as an editor for a major publishing house, sensible and competent. It was hard to associate that image with the dishevelled figure now sprawled on the sofa, sleeping without a care for appearances.

"Will her family be worried?" Bai Yutang, as a police officer, couldn't help but feel uneasy. A young woman getting blind drunk and passing out on the street was incredibly dangerous. And the people drinking with her, why didn't they send her home?!

Zhan Zhao glanced at Gao Min's outfit, she was wearing high heels today... He remembered that Gao Min usually only wore flats on workdays. High heels with a dress, had she been attending some sort of celebration?

"Ah!" Zhan Zhao tugged on Bai Yutang's sleeve and asked, "Could she have been heartbroken?"

"Heartbroken?" Bai Yutang considered it. "Got dumped, so she drank herself into oblivion?"

"Look at her, she's dressed like she was attending a wedding!" Zhan Zhao's imagination started running wild. "Could it be that the guy she liked got married today, and the bride wasn't her?"

Bai Yutang gave Zhan Zhao a helpless look – Was it really so dog-blooded?

"Hmm..." Zhan Zhao looked around. "Where's her bag?"

"Her bag?"

Zhan Zhao nodded. "She usually carries a big bag and a notebook with her..."

"Could she have left it in the stairwell?" Bai Yutang set the water down and went to check.

Meanwhile, Zhan Zhao grabbed a blanket and draped it over Gao Min. He knew she had a high alcohol tolerance, just how much had she drunk tonight...

Bai Yutang stepped into the stairwell and leaned over the railing to glance down... Sure enough, on the steps of the floor below, he spotted a black leather bag.

Bai Yutang went down to retrieve it and, on a whim, looked further down.

......

After a while, Zhan Zhao saw Bai Yutang return, frowning, with the bag in hand.

"How did she even get up here?" Bai Yutang handed the bag to Zhan Zhao, still puzzled. "There are security and cameras at every entrance downstairs, and it's a day off, so some doors are locked."

"She probably came in through the main entrance, the security guards downstairs all know her..." Zhan Zhao said as he rummaged through her bag in search of her phone.

"She was this drunk and still managed to climb more than ten flights of stairs?" Bai Yutang didn't think it made sense.

Zhan Zhao found Gao Min's phone inside the bag, but it was locked with a password.

"Password, password..." Zhan Zhao held the phone and thought for a moment before trying a string of numbers.

It didn't unlock.

"Hmm?" Zhan Zhao was a little surprised. "I actually got it wrong..."

He tried another set of numbers, but it was still incorrect.

Zhan Zhao blinked. Even Bai Yutang found it surprising – Zhan Zhao had never failed to guess a password for someone he knew, yet today, he had failed twice...

Staring at the phone in a daze, Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin and muttered, "That's a bit odd..."

At that moment, Gao Min let out a sleepy murmur from the sofa, as if she was about to wake up.

Bai Yutang gestured to Zhan Zhao – Just use her face to unlock it.

The two of them walked over and gave Gao Min a gentle shake.

She groaned in discomfort and struggled to sit up, then suddenly gagged again...

Fortunately, Bai Yutang reacted quickly, kicking the nearby garbage can into place.

Gao Min leaned over the sofa and vomited, leaving Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang shaking their heads.

When Gao Min was done throwing up, she sat there in a daze.

Just as Zhan Zhao was about to hold the phone up to her face for facial recognition, the phone suddenly rang.

The caller ID read "Auntie Liu." Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a glance... At that moment, Gao Min rolled over and went back to sleep.

The phone kept ringing urgently. Outside, the sky had darkened, and wind and rain lashed against the windows.

Guessing that it was probably a worried family member calling to check on her, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang decided to answer the call.

Luckily, answering didn't require a password, and the call connected quickly. An anxious voice came through, "Xiao Gao..."

Zhan Zhao had intended to explain that Xiao Gao was drunk and it wasn't convenient for her to take the call, but the woman on the other end seemed anxious and didn't wait for a response. She continued, "Has Jing Jing contacted you? She and Yuancheng aren't answering their phones!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, listening to the phone call head to head, looked at each other – Jing Jing?

"Hello? Xiao Gao? Xiao..."

Zhan Zhao had no choice but to respond in as calm a tone as possible, explaining the situation to the woman.

"Huh? Xiao Gao is drunk? But she was perfectly fine when the banquet ended..." Auntie Liu sounded concerned and asked Zhan Zhao, "And who are you?"

Zhan Zhao told her not to worry and explained that he was a police officer and that Xiao Gao was his editor.

"Oh... Are you that psychologist?" Auntie Liu asked. "Xiao Gao said she wanted to introduce you to me."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged another look – Where was this conversation heading?

Hearing the urgency in Auntie Liu's voice, Zhan Zhao asked, "What do you want to consult a psychologist for? Does it have to do with Jing Jing?"

"Yes! Jing Jing is my daughter, and Yuancheng is my son-in-law." Auntie Liu started explaining to Zhan Zhao, "They've been together since they were students and always had a great relationship. At the start of the year, they were even planning to have a baby. But then, by the second half of the year, they suddenly started arguing and talking about divorce!"

"Does that mean something happened, did one of them cheat?" Zhan Zhao, having nothing else to do, pulled up a chair and started chatting with Auntie Liu.

"No! They're both very proper! And honestly, if there really was a third party involved or something like that, I wouldn't even interfere, they could just go ahead and get divorced if they wanted to. It's just they're suddenly talking about divorce for no reason at all, and every time I ask them, they just tell me to stay out of it..." Auntie Liu complained endlessly to Zhan Zhao.

Resting his chin on his hand, Zhan Zhao listened to the call while Bai Yutang stood by the window, watching the heavy rain outside.

Bai Chi sent a text asking where they were. Bai Yutang briefly explained the situation, chances were, they wouldn't be going home tonight, they'd wait at the SCI office until Gao Min woke up and then take her home.

"What about their careers?" Zhan Zhao continued, "Did anything change? A resignation, promotion, relocation, anything like that?"

"Not that I've heard of," Auntie Liu sighed.

"What about their families?" Zhan Zhao pressed on. "Did anyone in the family pass away recently or anything like that?"

"No... Everything's been normal. Yuancheng's parents live abroad, and Jing Jing's father and I divorced years ago, we both live in S City."

"Hmm..." Zhan Zhao thought for a moment. "If you have time, we can meet up and discuss this in person, but Auntie, some things don't always have a clear reason. Since they're both adults, it's better to let them handle their emotional problems on their own..."

Zhan Zhao patiently gave Auntie Liu psychological counselling while Bai Yutang sat by the window flipping through documents, and Gao Min remained sound asleep on the sofa.

Time ticked by, minute by minute...

......

At the campground on the outskirts of the city, the once peaceful and leisurely atmosphere had vanished. As the wind and rain raged on, a hidden unease spread through hushed conversations.

Moments ago, a sharp scream had pierced the night. Several campground staff had rushed up the mountain, but after entering the villa, they came running out in terror.

One of the managers, hands shaking, called the police while other staff members worked to stop curious guests from going up the mountain.

"What happened?"

"I heard someone's dead!"

"Seriously? A murder? Or suicide?"

"No idea, it's that couple getting divorced."

"Who died? The man or the woman?"

"The woman, wasn't she the one who walked past wearing a shawl just now?"

"The one with the purple shawl?"

"Yeah, she was quite pretty."

......

The rising anxiety among the crowd momentarily eased when several police cars arrived at the entrance of the campground. Their presence confirmed it – there had definitely been a murder.

Ai Hu stepped out of the car with a few criminal police officers, found the manager, and went up the mountain together.

The manager was so scared that he was incoherent.

Ai Hu was an experienced officer. Judging by the manager's expression, the crime scene was likely gruesome.

At the entrance of the villa, the door was open, and the lights inside were on.

The manager explained that they hadn't turned the lights on, the room was already lit when they entered. They hadn't touched anything, they'd simply walked into the living room and were so terrified that they ran straight out.

Ai Hu put on shoe covers and stepped inside with two officers.

Just as the manager had described, after passing through the entrance hall and reaching the doorway to the living room, they immediately saw the scene inside.

Everyone froze.

After a moment, the two officers turned to look at Ai Hu.

Ai Hu asked the manager, who was peeking nervously from behind, "You said there were two guests, a man and a woman?"

"Yes! The woman seemed to scream just now."

"Where is she?" Ai Hu asked.

"Uh..." The manager hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I didn't see her..."

Ai Hu immediately led the two officers through the villa, searching upstairs and downstairs, but there was no sign of Liu Jing.

"Captain!"

Just then, the officer who walked through the kitchen and to the back door suddenly shouted.

Ai Hu and the other officer rushed over.

The villa's kitchen had a back door, which led to a yard with a small swimming pool. However, it was too cold this season, and the pool was empty, filled only with fallen leaves.

A fence enclosed the yard, and beyond it was a thicket of bushes. Past the bushes lay a dense forest... One section of the fence had been broken, and on the ground, there was a purple shawl.

Ai Hu walked to the fence and saw messy footprints leading into the woods.

Because of the storm, the ground was muddy. Ai Hu led the two officers around the footprints and into the forest.

A pitch-black stormy night, a pitch-black dense forest, a missing woman...

Ai Hu and the two officers shone their flashlights through the woods, calling out, but no one responded.

They kept searching, walking deeper into the forest. Before long, they emerged from the woods onto a road... It turned out the forest led straight to the highway near the tunnel.

Ai Hu instructed one officer to return to the campground and ask if anyone had seen the missing woman, while he and the other officer retraced their steps, continuing the search within the woods. The trees were dense, but the terrain wasn't complicated. By following the light, they quickly found their way back to the villa's backyard.

Standing in the yard and looking to either side, Ai Hu considered another possibility. If the woman had been startled and ran in a panic, not straight towards the highway but deeper into the mountain forest, that would be a bit of a problem.

The footprints in the mud only led so far into the trees, and in the darkness, they were difficult to see clearly.

Ai Hu instructed the officer to contact the search and rescue team to prepare for a mountain search, then returned to the villa's living room.

In front of the sofa in the villa's living room lay the corpse of a man.

Ai Hu had been a criminal police officer for many years and had seen a lot of corpses, but this was the first time he had encountered something like this.

Taking out his phone, Ai Hu snapped a photo of the body and dialled Bai Yutang.

......

In the SCI office, after offering Auntie Liu a free counselling session, Zhan Zhao successfully obtained Gao Min's home address.

Gao Min shared an apartment with a female colleague from the magazine.

Hanging up the call, Zhan Zhao signalled to Bai Yutang that they could take her home.

The two of them were just about to "carry" Gao Min out when Bai Yutang's phone rang.

Seeing that it was Ai Hu, Bai Yutang had a feeling that at this hour, it was probably about a case.

He put the call on speaker. Ai Hu's voice came through, "Captain Bai, are you with Dr. Zhan?"

"Yes," Zhan Zhao replied.

"What happened?" Bai Yutang asked.

"There's been a murder at a villa in a campground. One dead, one missing. The corpse is a bit strange," Ai Hu said. "I'll send you a photo."

Soon, the photo arrived.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang leaned in to look at it and froze. Bai Yutang couldn't help but ask, "What the...?"

"Zoom in and have a look," Zhan Zhao transferred the image to the projector and displayed it on the large screen.

Both of them looked up at the screen together.

The effect of the magnified photo was even more eerie and unsettling.

In front of a sofa stood a middle-aged man.

His eyes were wide open, and his face was frozen in an expression of shock.

On his head, he wore a pair of white rabbit ears, the kind of headband used for decoration.

He was dressed in a bizarre red outfit... It looked like a mascot costume, made of red velvet. The red fabric was patterned with white squares, each containing red hearts, some with one, some with multiple, making him resemble a human-sized playing card from the suit of hearts.

The front of his outfit was soaked through with blood... But the most bizarre part was that he was standing there, arm raised, with a pocket watch hanging from his hand.

Attached to the long chain of the pocket watch was an object... A human heart, still dripping with blood.

A large pool of scarlet stained the floor, and a bunch of playing cards were scattered about, all from the hearts suit.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang stared at the corpse, both momentarily shocked... That corpse was bloody and eerie, almost artistic in its composition. The whole scene seemed like a meticulously crafted Halloween statue or a set from a horror movie.

Just as they were trying to figure out how the body was still "standing," a sudden sound interrupted their thoughts.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang turned around...

Gao Min had woken up at some point and was now sitting on the sofa, staring unblinkingly at the image on the projector screen. In her hand was a bottle cap, the bottle itself had fallen to the floor, water spilling out in a steady trickle...

‿︵‿︵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 4, 2025 by Angel

Edited: April 18, 2025 by Soojin