S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 33

The Card Murderer 33 – Mixed Memories

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Boss Tu told Bai Ye about his experiences as a young man. The first half of the story had something of a suspenseful atmosphere... the rehabilitation centre was full of suspicious signs.

A sudden car accident became the turning point in the story... from that moment on, it shifted from suspense into outright horror.

According to Boss Tu, the female driver involved in the accident was brought into the rehabilitation centre and took the place of the female patient she had run over, continuing with the treatment.

It was a baffling operation... the idea that patients could be "replaced" by one another was absurd in itself, it was like saying if I caught a cold, you could take the medicine for me...

But because of this, Boss Tu began to feel suspicious... He noticed that there seemed to be only patients and medical staff there, never any family members coming to visit.

He even asked around and discovered that not only had none of the patients ever had family appear, but even the staff, people like him, all seemed to have no relatives to speak of. He couldn't help but recall the series of strange questions he had been asked during the initial interview. In hindsight, it seemed the rehabilitation centre had been specifically seeking "loner" types for its staff.

The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became. If he were to suddenly disappear, would anyone notice? Would anyone even care? The answer was – no!

Once Tu Zi had this realisation, he wanted to resign.

But at the same time, he was very curious and concerned about the female driver who had been brought into the centre... she had just vanished into thin air. Had no family come looking for her?

A few more days passed, and Tu Zi noticed some changes in the patients at the rehabilitation centre.

They began wearing bandages for longer periods than before, and that female driver had been locked in a ward on the top floor, forbidden from leaving.

One morning, Tu Zi got up, ready to start another day at work, when he suddenly heard a commotion erupting in the hospital.

He saw that a crowd had gathered in the open space in front of the rehabilitation centre building... word was that the female driver had jumped off the roof.

Doctors and nurses were rushing in and out of the hospital, and eventually the crowd dispersed. Someone told Tu Zi to go and wash away the blood on the ground.

Tu Zi took the cleaning tools and walked to the base of the building. When he looked up... he saw the female driver standing at the top floor window, leaning halfway out, peering down.

Tu Zi rubbed his eyes and looked again, there was no one there anymore.

Tu Zi was certain he had seen the female driver, but later he began to doubt himself... after all, the patients in the hospital had all been wrapped in bandages recently, and from such a distance, he might have seen wrong.

Tu Zi checked with his colleagues again and was told that it was indeed the female driver who had jumped to her death.

From that point on, none of the patients in the hospital ever took off their bandages again... and from time to time, Tu Zi would still catch sight of the female driver appearing.

He grew more and more uneasy with each passing day. The thought of resigning and leaving this place kept circling in his mind, but although he thought about it constantly, he never actually did anything.

One night, a torrential storm broke out.

Tu Zi, fast asleep, was startled awake by a loud clap of thunder. A wave of panic surged in his heart, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

He reached up to wipe his face, but something about the sensation on his hand felt off... so he got out of bed, switched on the light, and walked to the bathroom. As he looked in the mirror... he saw that his head was also wrapped in bandages.

The moment he saw his bandaged head, Tu Zi let out a terrified scream. He tore at the bandages like a madman, but no matter how many times he pulled, they just kept going round and round. In the end, amidst his desperate screams, he woke up once again.

It turned out to be nothing but a nightmare. Sitting on the bed, Tu Zi reached up with trembling hands and felt his face. There were no bandages, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

To confirm it had just been a dream, Tu Zi got out of bed and walked to the bathroom again to look in the mirror.

In the mirror, he was still himself, just a little pale, but there were no bandages on his head.

Relieved, he turned on the tap and splashed some water on his face. But as Tu Zi looked up again, he saw a woman with her head wrapped in bandages standing behind him.

He shuddered violently and turned around at once... but there was nothing there. He looked back at the mirror again, still nothing.

Tu Zi's head was buzzing with fear. Although he didn't know exactly what was going on, he could feel that something wasn't quite right anymore.

Tu Zi hurried out of the bathroom and walked over to the window, opening it to get some fresh air.

At that moment, it was indeed raining heavily outside the window.

Tu Zi and the others lived in the staff dormitory, separated by a playground, with the ward area directly opposite.

The ward consisted of three buildings arranged in the shape of the character "工", namely wards one, two, and three. Ward two faced directly opposite the staff dormitory building.

The top floor of that building was the doctors' workspace. It had its own staircase leading up and down and was physically separated from the rest of the patient wards.

As the medical workspace always had its lights on, when Tu Zi looked over at night, he would see a brightly lit "T"-shaped figure.

But tonight, something felt off. For some reason, whether it was a power outage or a blown fuse, the three ward buildings opposite were completely dark. Not a single light was on, not even in the medical staff area.

Tu Zi lay back down on his bed, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong... It was eerily quiet all around him. All he could hear was the sound of rain outside the window, there wasn't a trace of human noise.

Tu Zi lay there for a while longer, but sleep wouldn't come. So once again, he got out of bed and walked over to the window to look outside.

It was then that he noticed a light had come on in a room on the top floor across the way.

That room was the one where the female driver had previously been "held", the same one she had jumped from. It was a special ward, located right next to the doctors' offices.

Tu Zi frowned and stared at it closely... Suddenly... a large splash of red liquid was flung across the ward's window and began to stream down... Half the window turned crimson.

Tu Zi thought he was hallucinating again and blinked hard, trying to refocus... but he found that there were bloodstains dripping down the window.

Just then, the lights in the doctors' office next door also flicked on... and once again, someone flung a wave of blood-red liquid onto the window.

And just like that, the "T"-shaped outline of lights across the ward building lit up once more.

Eventually, Tu Zi saw a woman with her head wrapped in bandages tiptoeing out from the stairwell of the building opposite, lifting her skirt as she moved.

There was clearly no one around her, and the playground between the buildings was completely empty, yet she held her skirt up and tiptoed along, walking in an unnervingly careful and strange way through the heavy rain in the dead of night.

The way she moved made Tu Zi feel as though she wasn't even human.

After a few steps, the woman suddenly raised her head and looked in Tu Zi's direction.

Even though they were still quite far apart and Tu Zi's room lights were off, he could feel it, the woman saw him. And... he was absolutely certain that the woman was the same female driver from before! There was no mistaking it!

As their eyes met, Tu Zi panicked and ducked down. When he dared to peek back out, the woman was already gone.

Almost at that exact moment, a loud banging came from outside his door. The knocking was so forceful that Tu Zi's heart nearly leapt out of his chest.

But the strangest thing was that the knocking wasn't on his door, it was on the one next to his.

The colleague who lived next door seemed to have been woken up and got out of bed cursing under his breath to open the door. What followed... was a scream.

Tu Zi covered his ears and cowered in the corner beneath the window, trembling all over, he didn't dare move an inch.

At that moment, he heard a creaking sound above his head, it seemed the window was being opened. He didn't dare look up. Instead, he shut his eyes tightly and curled himself into a ball. Before long, he felt a hand reach in from outside the window, moving slowly, groping along the wall.

Tu Zi could feel the hand brushing over the top of his head. It fumbled around for a while, then suddenly seized his hair. He remembered himself letting out a scream, and after that... everything went black.

When Tu Zi regained consciousness, he found himself in a hospital. The ward was brightly lit, and beside his bed, medical instruments were beeping steadily.

A nurse was changing his dressing. When she saw that he was awake, she pressed the call button at the head of the bed.

A short while later, a doctor came in to examine his injuries.

Tu Zi saw that his whole body was wrapped in bandages. He was in excruciating pain, as if he had sustained some kind of serious trauma.

After the doctor finished the examination, several police officers entered and began asking him questions.

It was only then that Tu Zi learnt a violent incident had taken place at the rehabilitation centre. Many people had died that night, and he had been severely injured, but he was the sole survivor.

The police asked what had happened that evening, and he recounted everything he had experienced in full detail.

When he finished, the officers looked at him as though they were looking at a patient, and they even seemed to sympathise with him., thinking he might have been deeply traumatised.

Later, while Tu Zi was still recovering, the hospital affiliated with the rehabilitation centre arranged for a lawyer to discuss compensation, and he received a substantial payout.

When Tu Zi was discharged from the hospital, his body had healed, but he felt that he might no longer be normal.

Tu Zi showed Bai Ye some of his old injuries.

Bai Ye saw that his body was indeed covered in external wounds. Some of the scars were particularly long, as though he'd been scratched by sharp claws.

From then on, Tu Zi's life was dominated by fear. He couldn't sleep at night, plagued by constant nightmares, and often suffered from hallucinations. He was terrified of mirrors and even more afraid of the surroundings becoming quiet. He rented a place near an amusement park that operated all night, and only in the midst of noise and bustle could he fall asleep.

Not long after, the amusement park ran into financial trouble and faced closure, so Tu Zi bought the small amusement park.

Whether it was a blessing in disguise, no one could say, but because he feared the park growing quiet, he tried every possible way to keep it lively, and business boomed... Over time, he ended up opening more and more large amusement parks, and that was how things came to be as they are now.

Later on, Tu Zi got married, but he remained thoroughly "abnormal" and couldn't live with his family for any extended period of time.

Once, his wife came out of the bathroom after a shower, her hair down, wearing her nightdress. She had accidentally knocked over a glass of water, spilling it all over the floor, so she lifted the hem of her dress and tiptoed over to fetch a mop...

Tu Zi happened to catch sight of this scene. He was so terrified that he fell straight down the stairs and nearly killed himself. His reaction, in turn, gave his wife quite a fright.

Tu Zi is wealthy and particularly fond of "stirring things up," so he comes across as very ostentatious. There was an incident before where he almost got kidnapped, but fortunately, he ran into Bai Ye, who conveniently saved him.

Tu Zi was particularly "fond" of Bai Ye. He always felt that wherever Bai Ye was, there was a sense of security. As if, even if that female ghost really were to appear, Bai Ye would be able to deal with her. So wherever Bai Ye happened to be, Tu Zi would often make sure he was in the same city.

After listening to his story, Bai Ye could finally understand why a single photograph had nearly given Tu Zi a heart attack...

Meanwhile, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, who had clicked their pens so hard that the springs inside had snapped, were both in a state of shock and excitement... The two of them strongly doubted the state of Tu Zi's mental health, as well as the credibility of the story he had just told.

Of course, it wasn't that they believed Tu Zi was lying on purpose, they simply thought he might not have been working at the rehabilitation centre at all. Rather... he had been a patient himself. There had likely been a violent incident that night, but Tu Zi's memory of it might have become entangled with delusions.

He had indeed been an experiencer and survivor of the incident, but his recollection had merged reality with hallucination.

When Bai Yutang returned to the door to the ward with Eleven and Mia, this was the scene they came upon... Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue were leaning against the windowsill, staring inside with looks of intense interest written all over their faces.

Mia made a hand gesture at Eleven and asked him if the way Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue were clinging to the window looked like two leopards trying to catch a rabbit.

Eleven waved it off – They aren't leopards, more like two rabbits trying to break out of prison.

Hearing movement behind him, Bai Yutang turned around and saw Mia and Eleven covering their mouths and laughing.

Just then, Bai Yutang's phone buzzed. A message from Gongsun came through: "All the evidence has been collected, we can hold the meeting now."

Bai Yutang snapped his fingers in the direction ahead.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue turned their heads simultaneously...

Bai Yutang looked somewhat speechless at the two people who were as "alert" as rabbits, waved his hand, and said, "Let's go back for the meeting."

‿︵‿︵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 23, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 20, 2025 by Soojin