S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 27

The Card Murderer 27 – Perspective

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Sparrow Mountain wasn't like some of those dangerous mountains or primaeval forests, in plain terms, it was just an ordinary little hill on the outskirts of the city.

Even without a guide, it wasn't the kind of place where one could easily get lost, at most, it might just take a bit more time to get around. There were wide paths through the forest, some even accessible by vehicle.

If one paid attention while walking, they would see all sorts of different tyre tracks on the ground.

Zhao Hu was chatting with Xiao Liu as they walked. Hu Zi had a cheerful personality, and even though he was asking routine questions, he chatted with Xiao Liu in a relaxed manner.

Xiao Liu spoke quite a bit about Lao Jia... From his account, Lao Jia seemed like a perfectly normal person. The only notable thing was that he suffered from frequent insomnia and took medication to help him sleep. He hadn't known that what Lao Jia was actually taking were antipsychotic drugs.

As for the ruins in the forest, Xiao Liu had passed by them a few times before. When they were searching for that university student, he also participated in the search of the mountain, though they had come up empty-handed.

Speaking of the ruins, Xiao Liu said that ever since the place became an internet-famous spot, people often went in to explore... But although it had been popular for quite some time, interest had waned recently.

"The peak of its popularity, was that around the time that student went missing half a year ago?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Roughly. Loads of people went and set up tents at the campground out front, barbecuing during the day, testing their courage at night, it was lively for months." Xiao Liu shook his head. "But later on, the crowds died down. Probably got bored of it. Lao Jia used to say, 'Forget just S City, even across the whole country, there aren't that many people bored enough to go out of their way looking for trouble. Once the novelty wears off, that's that.'"

Somehow, everyone found themselves thinking that Old Jia, who could say such words, really didn't seem to have any mental illness.

Zhan Zhao saw Bai Yutang glance at him, so he nodded slightly... He also started considering the possibility that Lao Jia had "deliberately" let something slip. Pei Xiu's appearance as a "variable" had certainly been unexpected. If Lao Jia hadn't been prepared for it, it was entirely possible he'd accidentally exposed himself, but then again, brushing it off would've been easy too, he could have just insisted he "didn't remember". Both of them felt it would be worth having a proper conversation with Lao Jia when they got back. Perhaps, aside from what he knew, he was also hiding from something.

The two of them were just thinking about it when they noticed Ma Han and Eleven walking slowly, heads lowered, as if they were looking for something.

Seeing the pair slowing down more and more, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao also came to a halt.

Ma Han crouched down and picked something up from the ground, showing it to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang as they walked over to him.

Because the object was so small, neither Zhan Zhao nor Bai Yutang could see it clearly. Zhan Zhao opened his palm and held it out.

Ma Han placed the item into Zhan Zhao's hand... it turned out to be a tiny fragment of straw.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a glance – A piece of straw!

"It appears intermittently along the way, as if there's some kind of pattern," Ma Han said.

Eleven pointed back. "Every time there's a pothole, there's a little cluster of them."

"A pothole..." Bai Yutang thought for a moment. "Could it be that the scarecrow was transported using some kind of wheeled device?"

"Possibly a bicycle," Though Eleven didn't know what scarecrow they were talking about, if straw fragments had been falling off along the way, a bicycle did seem like a logical means of transport.

"The faster the vehicle, the greater the vibration, and the farther the straw would fall from the potholes, so it must have been a very slow-moving wheeled device... Do you understand what I mean?" Eleven drew a parabola in the air.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both nodded. There wasn't any straw around here either, had the murderer transported the scarecrow to the villa via this path?

Bai Yutang looked around at the surroundings... It was technically remote woodland, but with so many campers coming and going, it was entirely possible someone might have wandered into the forest. Would the murderer really have ridden a bicycle with a scarecrow and parts of a corpse on the back? Were they not afraid of being seen?

And besides, who on earth uses a bicycle to transport something like that? That's just sick.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao both shook their heads, feeling that this case was becoming more and more incomprehensible... What exactly is the murderer's intention?

After walking a bit further, they came upon some broken, rusted barbed wire fencing in the grass up ahead.

Seeing the barbed wire, Pei Xiu said, "I used to sneak around here with Pei Yun before, spying on the hospital..."

As he spoke, he pointed to a large tree nearby. "We even climbed up there to see into the hospital grounds. Pei Yun was as skinny as a monkey when she was little, and she was amazing at climbing trees."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both tilted their heads to look up at the tree. It was hard to imagine that the current serious Pei Yun had once been wild enough to climb such a tall tree with her younger brother, just to sneak a peek at what the psychiatric hospital looked like inside.

Xiao Liu also looked up at the tree and said, "Every time Lao Jia walked past here, he'd stand and stare up at it for ages."

Hearing this, Bai Yutang thoughtfully lifted his head for another glance... Is there anything special about this tree?

The group didn't linger long and made their way around to the front of the hospital.

There were two large iron gates at the entrance, half open, just wide enough for a person to pass through. They had once been painted sky blue but were now covered in rust.

They stepped inside... The hospital grounds were overgrown with weeds, the ground littered with bricks, empty drink bottles, and garbage bags... it was clear that plenty of "visitors" had been here in the past.

There were also shards of glass, likely from broken windows in the building... as well as fragments of mirrors.

The group crossed a large open space, something like a playground. Bai Yutang glanced up at the surroundings and spotted a surveillance camera mounted on a lamppost. It was a small device... it didn't look like an ordinary camera, and its angle was rather odd.

After Bai Yutang stared at it for a moment, Xiao Liu said, "That's an infrared camera, it's used to monitor sparrow populations."

Upon hearing this, Bai Yutang looked around – he didn't spot a single sparrow.

"Do sparrows fly south for the winter?" Zhao Hu asked Ma Han curiously.

Ma Han shook his head. "They're not migratory birds... But maybe they go into hiding during the cold."

Xiao Liu nodded, "Exactly!"

Bai Yutang took another look at the camera, then turned to look at Eleven.

Eleven shook his head, indicating that it didn't exist before, and said that at that time, sparrows were not yet an endangered species.

Bai Yutang didn't say anything else, but he had noticed that the position of the camera was just slightly lower than the treetop outside, though the angle was very close.

Bai Yutang wondered, Pei Xiu and the others climbed this tree twenty years ago. The tree should have been lower back then, right? Wasn't it about the same height as this camera's position?

Bai Yutang didn't know why, but he couldn't stop thinking about that camera. Something about it bothered him... A birdwatching camera mounted on a lamp post didn't make sense.

The group reached the main hospital building.

The hospital complex consisted of three buildings arranged in the shape of the character "工", all connected to one another.

The buildings were painted the same sky blue as the iron gate, and contrary to what they had expected, even though it was abandoned, the structure still looked rather bright, not at all gloomy.

Zhan Zhao thought the overall design was quite rational, and the lighting was surprisingly good. It looked like a proper, formal inpatient psychiatric facility.

Walking into the building, the interior remained well-lit. The lobby was very spacious, though the ground was littered with broken glass, which looked a little dangerous.

Even though it was midday, and the building itself wasn't particularly eerie, there was still a certain chill to the ruins. The main reason was probably the "bloodstains" left on the walls.

The walls were covered in large patches of spattered blood. After years of wind and rain, the stains had faded into a pale brown, but the forceful way they had been splattered and then streaked down the walls was still quite evident.

Those stains reminded Bai Yutang of the ones in the RV where Wang Qiu had committed suicide. In short... it felt rather theatrical, like a horror film set that had been deliberately arranged.

Passing through the lobby, there were corridors and stairs ahead, but they only went up, not down. It seemed that there was no entrance to the basement in this building.

The group went up to the second floor and found that there was much less blood. They then went up to the third floor, where the area was very clean, the rooms were smaller and arranged one by one, and there were some abandoned beds inside, likely indicating it should be a single-patient ward area.

This wing had four floors in total, but the staircase only went up to the third floor.

Xiao Liu explained that the fourth floor could only be accessed via the central building's staircase. The lower three floors of the front and back wings were used for patient accommodation, and the top floor was where the medical staff had their offices.

"In other words, to access the medical staff's office area, there's only one staircase, which is the one in the central building, right?" Bai Yutang asked.

Xiao Liu nodded.

"This layout..." Zhao Hu muttered, "feels less like a hospital and more like a prison."

Ma Han and Eleven both nodded, How can doctors and patients be physically separated? Doctors should be able to reach the patient's location as quickly as possible. If there's an emergency, by the time the doctor makes a detour to arrive, the patient might already be beyond saving.

Bai Yutang walked over to the window in the ward area and looked out... Sure enough, he could see that lamppost, and the position of the camera seemed to be aimed directly at the fourth floor, meaning it was pointing at what had originally been the doctors' office area.

Eleven walked to the window and pointed to the windowsill, telling Bai Yutang, "The bullet was placed right here."

Bai Yutang asked Eleven somewhat puzzled, "Do you always come to this exact spot when you visit? Why was the bullet left right here?"

Eleven pointed at the large tree and said, "Back then, the tree wasn't this tall, you could see the mouth of the tunnel through the gaps between the branches."

Everyone stood by the window and stared for quite a while, trying to make sense of it. "You could see the tunnel entrance from here?"

Eleven nodded. "It's quite clever. Even though it's hidden deep in the forest, the view from this floor is unusually good. The higher floors actually don't offer a better line of sight."

Bai Yutang frowned and tried to reason it out. Uncle Chopsticks had come to the ruins a few years after Pei Xiu and the others, what would the view have been like back then? Was it a coincidence, or was this perspective deliberately created?

"Across the tunnel..." Bai Yutang recalled that there had once been another forested area on the other side, and beyond that forest was, if he remembered correctly, the location of Pei Xiu's old family home.

Could it be that in the past, something could be seen from here? But after these ten or twenty years of trees growing wildly, it can't be seen any more...

Though unsure whether his speculation was correct, Bai Yutang still wanted to go upstairs to check out the current view...

Just as they were about to head downstairs and go over to the fourth floor of the neighbouring building, suddenly... they heard a clink... rattle rattle... coming from upstairs

Everyone was just about to go downstairs to the fourth floor of the building next door when suddenly... they heard a bang... gurgle... from upstairs.

Bai Yutang looked up. Ma Han and Zhao Hu had heard it too. It sounded like a glass bottle being knocked over and rolling.

Just as they were wondering what it could be... footsteps echoed from above.

‿︵‿︵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 7, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 7, 2025 by Soojin