S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 6

The Card Murderer 06 – Abnormal Normal

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A middle-aged man stepped into the elevator. He looked to be in his forties, with a slightly receding hairline and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He was of average height and build, and his face bore a friendly expression.

Gao Min stared at him in surprise. The man adjusted his glasses and smiled as he greeted her, "Xiao Gao'ah, have you sobered up?"

Gao Min opened her mouth and nodded awkwardly.

The man then noticed Zhan Zhao and nodded in greeting. "Dr. Zhan, it's been a while."

Bai Yutang didn't know him, but the man still smiled and gave him a polite nod.

Zhan Zhao recognised him, though they weren't well acquainted.

He was Gao Min's colleague, a fellow editor at the magazine, Chen Xu, whom everyone called Lao Chen. He was a veteran editor. Zhan Zhao had seen him once or twice at publishing events but hadn't formed much of an impression. However, for him to appear in the elevator of Liu Jing's building at this hour was certainly odd, and he even knew that Gao Min had been drunk...

After stepping inside, Lao Chen glanced at the elevator buttons but didn't press any, which meant he was also heading to Liu Jing's apartment.

Lao Chen looked at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, then glanced around before asking, "Has something happened?"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang turned to look at Gao Min.

Gao Min, in turn, looked at Lao Chen with confusion.

Lao Chen extended his hand, holding a cell phone. "Xiao Liu left her phone in the car, so I came to return it."

Gao Min fixed her gaze on the phone in Lao Chen's hand, while Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged a glance and then both stared at Lao Chen – Suspicious! The word suspicious is practically written on his face!

Just then, the elevator doors opened.

They all stepped out together.

Lao Chen rang the doorbell.

A moment later, Auntie Liu came to open the door.

Seeing so many people at the entrance, she was momentarily taken aback.

Lao Chen spoke first, handing over the phone. "Xiao Liu left her phone in the taxi. Someone found it and contacted me..."

"Oh!" Auntie Liu hurriedly took the phone and thanked him. "Thank you, Editor Chen, for going out of your way to bring it over..."

"It's no trouble at all," Lao Chen waved his hand dismissively, then made to leave.

But Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang weren't about to let him go that easily, they quickly stopped him.

Gao Min also invited him inside to sit for a while.

Both Auntie Liu and Lao Chen looked puzzled but still stepped into the room.

Lao Chen furrowed his brow and glanced at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang before lowering his voice to ask Gao Min, "Xiao Gao, has something happened?"

Gao Min wasn't sure what to say, so she simply nodded, indicating they would talk later.

"Where's Liu Jing?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Auntie Liu looked at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

Gao Min quickly introduced them, saying that this was SCI's Captain Bai and Dr. Zhan.

"Dr. Zhan?" Auntie Liu seemed rather pleased and pointed to herself. "The Dr. Zhan I just spoke to on the phone?"

Zhan Zhao nodded, confirming that it was him.

"Oh..." Auntie Liu was quite pleased, sizing up Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang. "You two young men are truly outstanding!"

Gao Min rubbed her forehead – Auntie, now is not the time to admire good-looking men, something serious has happened!

Due to the mismatch of information, the atmosphere in the living room felt somewhat awkward as they all stood there.

"Let's sit down and talk," Gao Min helped Auntie Liu to a seat, while Lao Chen also sat down on the sofa.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a glance before looking at a slightly ajar door in front of them.

"Auntie, where's Jing Jing?" Gao Min asked about Liu Jing's whereabouts after sitting down.

"She's in her room, still asleep..." Auntie Liu had begun to sense that the atmosphere wasn't right.

Bai Yutang took out an evidence bag and placed Liu Jing's phone, which Auntie Liu had just casually set on the coffee table, inside.

Auntie Liu and Lao Chen both stared at Bai Yutang's actions, looking surprised.

"Editor Chen," Zhan Zhao turned to Lao Chen, "why was this phone with you? Did you see Liu Jing today?"

Auntie Liu interjected, "Editor Chen was the one who brought Jing Jing home earlier."

Lao Chen nodded. "Yuancheng messaged me earlier, saying he had an argument with Jing Jing and she ran off on her own in the rain in a fit of anger. Since I live in the opposite complex, Yuancheng asked me to meet Xiao Liu at the entrance of the complex and bring her home because he was worried about her emotional state. I called Xiao Liu, and when I saw that it was about time, I went downstairs to wait for her. After dropping her off at home, I returned to my own place. Quite some time later, I received another call from Xiao Liu's phone. But when I answered, it was a man's voice on the other end. He said he was a passenger in a taxi and had found a phone on the back seat, so he called the most recent number in the call log. I told him the phone was probably left in the cab by a friend of mine, and he gave me an address, telling me to pick it up from a convenience store. So I drove there, it was a convenience store by the subway station next to the publishing house. The shop assistant told me that someone had indeed left a phone there earlier... So I took it back with me."

Bai Yutang picked up Liu Jing's phone and glanced at it. It wasn't locked and could be accessed directly.

The call log showed an incoming call from Lao Chen at seven-ten p.m., which Liu Jing had apparently answered... Counting the time, it matched exactly with the footage from the car's interior camera, when Liu Jing had been seen answering a call.

After that, there was a missed call from Zhang Yuancheng's phone to Liu Jing's, most likely the one Zhan Zhao had made using Zhang Yuancheng's phone.

The final call was an outgoing one from Liu Jing's phone to Lao Chen, which should have been the passenger who found the phone contacting him.

"Was the place you picked up the phone far from here?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"The location itself wasn't too bad, it's just that there was no parking near the subway station. I had to leave my car in the magazine's underground garage and walk over, which took some time," Lao Chen was still puzzled. "What exactly is going on?"

Zhan Zhao took out Zhang Yuancheng's phone and checked the chat history...

But there was no conversation between him and Lao Chen.

Zhan Zhao then said he wanted to see the messages between Lao Chen and Zhang Yuancheng.

Lao Chen had no choice but to hand over his own phone and pull up the chat for Zhan Zhao to see.

Indeed, there was a conversation between him and Zhang Yuancheng, and the content matched what Lao Chen had just described... Looking at the time, they had spoken around seven p.m. After that, Lao Chen presumably called Liu Jing.

However...

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both knew that by that time, Zhang Yuancheng was already dead, which meant that it had been the murderer speaking to Lao Chen.

But the problem was...

Liu Jing had screamed and fled from the crime scene at around seven p.m. Not long after Liu Jing escaped, the management staff arrived at the villa and called the police.

Zhang Yuancheng's phone had ultimately been found on the sofa in the villa's living room. In other words... Had the murderer remained inside the villa until after the management staff called the police? Or had the murderer returned to the villa during the time between the call to the police and the arrival of law enforcement?

And just now, Zhan Zhao had used Zhang Yuancheng's phone to contact Liu Jing's phone.

Zhan Zhao checked Liu Jing's phone again and found that the chat was still there... Had the phone been in the hands of the taxi passenger all this time?

As Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang mentally reviewed the timeline and the various oddities in the case, Lao Chen and Auntie Liu were growing visibly uneasy.

The reason Zhan Zhao hadn't revealed anything outright yet was that he still observing their reactions.

So far, neither of them seemed to know that Zhang Yuancheng had been killed. Auntie Liu could be set aside for now, but Lao Chen's involvement felt particularly out of place.

The murderer had instructed him to pick up Liu Jing and then asked him to retrieve the phone. Why him?

"Do you know Mingdi Yang?" Zhan Zhao suddenly asked.

"I'm Mingdi's editor," Lao Chen was even more confused.

"What did the passenger who called you sound like?" Zhan Zhao continued asking, not answering.

Lao Chen scratched his head. "Uh... A man, probably not too old? His voice sounded quite friendly."

Zhan Zhao took out his tablet and played the recording of the taxi booking call for Lao Chen. "Was it this voice?"

"It sounds a bit like it," Lao Chen replied after listening to the first recording, then he asked Gao Min, "The trip from the barbecue restaurant to the police station, was that the taxi you took earlier, Xiao Gao?"

"Me?" Gao Min looked at Lao Chen in surprise. "How do you know..."

Lao Chen sighed helplessly. "Didn't you drink a lot when we were having barbecue earlier?"

Hearing that the conversation had finally touched on her memory gap, Gao Min quickly asked for details.

Lao Chen was rather speechless. "Honestly, you two sisters are so clueless. You just finished drinking and ran off to catch a taxi home by yourself, leaving your phone on the barbecue restaurant table."

"My phone?!" Gao Min was confused.

"Luckily, some guy picked it up and handed it to me. By the time I ran out after you, you were already in the taxi. Mingdi had just helped you into the car, don't you remember? You even threw up all over him..."

Gao Min sucked in a sharp breath. "No way..."

"It was Mingdi who helped her into the taxi?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Yeah. By the time I caught up, the taxi had already driven off, so Mingdi and I got in our car and followed it, then we saw you get out at the police station entrance," Lao Chen explained helplessly. "I gave you back your phone, and you, completely drunk, charged straight into the police station saying you wanted to find Zhan Zhao and ask him to write a manuscript or something..."

As he finished speaking, Lao Chen glanced over at Zhan Zhao.

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked him if the taxi stopped right in front of the police station.

Lao Chen nodded.

The two were silent... This was something they could definitely verify through surveillance footage. Based on the timeline, if this footage existed, it would effectively confirm an alibi for all three people involved.

"Did she really leave her phone at the barbecue place?" Zhan Zhao asked Lao Chen to recount the moment the phone was found in detail.

Lao Chen was puzzled, but the old man was good-tempered, and he patiently answered. He explained that the barbecue restaurant had been noisy and chaotic as people were leaving. A young man, presumably a customer who arrived later, handed the phone to him.

Gao Min's phone case had a distinctive design, a panda face-planted on the ground, making it easy to recognise... So, Lao Chen took the phone and ran after her.

Zhan Zhao then asked what the young man looked like. Lao Chen thought for a moment and said, "I think he was wearing a tracksuit, but I didn't really pay much attention, I was too busy catching up to Gao Min."

Bai Yutang had been listening the whole time and felt it all seemed too coincidental, yet everything made sense and the timeline checked out.

But things being too normal was what felt abnormal, it gave the distinct impression of something meticulously orchestrated. Even the two helpful bystanders who had returned the phones seemed suspicious. Right now, the statements of the two taxi drivers, especially the one who had picked up Liu Jing, were absolutely crucial...

Zhan Zhao thought about it as well... For a period of time, the three phones belonging to Liu Jing, Gao Min, and Zhang Yuancheng had all been out of their owners' possession. The murderer had used them to book taxis and contact the police, yet no one had seen them. And in the end, all three phones had been returned to their "rightful places." If the previous actions had seemed like a provocation, this now felt more like a display of arrogance...

Seeing that both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang remained silent, even Lao Chen, good-tempered as he was, was starting to get anxious, and he asked, "What on earth is going on?"

Zhan Zhao studied his expression before answering, "Zhang Yuancheng is dead."

"What?!"

Lao Chen froze, while Auntie Liu let out a shocked cry.

In truth, with the sudden arrival of the police and their string of strange questions, both of them had already begun to sense that something was seriously wrong.

But the abrupt revelation was still out of their expectations.

Zhan Zhao observed their reactions, his mind clouded with doubt – Too normal, everything is too normal!

Auntie Liu became extremely agitated. Thinking back to her daughter's unusual behaviour, she suspected that her daughter behaved like that because she knew her husband was dead.

It was evident that this mother-in-law had been quite fond of her son-in-law, her grief didn't seem feigned in the slightest.

Gao Min comforted Auntie Liu.

Lao Chen frowned and asked Zhan Zhao, "But Yuancheng seemed perfectly fine when we were messaging earlier... How could this happen? Did something unexpected occur in the meantime?"

Though he suspected that there had been some kind of accident, Lao Chen also knew that was unlikely, after all, it wasn't the traffic police delivering the news, but SCI, the team responsible for major crime investigations. In other words...

"How did he die?" Lao Chen asked Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

"He was murdered," Zhan Zhao replied.

Lao Chen had a look of surprise on his face.

Auntie Liu, on the other hand, grew even more distressed. The old lady thought again about her daughter's strange behaviour, and countless suspicions flashed through her mind.

"Aiya, it couldn't be... couldn't be that they had a fight, and Jing Jing..." Auntie Liu shook her head vigorously. "No, no, my daughter isn't a violent person!"

At that moment, Bai Yutang suddenly lifted his head and looked towards the back of the sofa.

Zhan Zhao also raised his head to look...

He saw that the door at the back of the living room, which had been left slightly ajar earlier, had now been pushed open, and Liu Jing had stepped out.

‿︵‿︵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 8, 2025 by Angel

Edited: May 2, 2025 by Angel