S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 35

The Card Murderer 35 – Identity

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They were originally about to return for the case analysis meeting, but clues and information continued to bombard them, and a major incident had occurred.

Zhan Zhao was surprised to discover that Liu Jing was actually suffering from a brain tumour, and also displayed pathological symptoms of split personality.

Zhan Zhao called Zhao Jue, who had still been "studying" Tu Zi, to join him for a discussion with Dr. Shen.

After looking at Liu Jing's brain CT scan, Zhao Jue also found it remarkable. "That blow really did it... That female ghost had something special."

Dr. Shen agreed readily. "If it weren't for that blow causing a skull fracture, she wouldn't have undergone such a detailed examination. This illness might never have been discovered otherwise."

"But it's actually quite treatable." The doctors had just finished a meeting and said that the surgery would not be particularly difficult.

Zhan Zhao asked Zhao Jue, "Have you ever encountered a patient like this before? If the brain tumour is removed, would the split personality still exist? Or rather, if the personality disappears, what about the preserved memories? Would they still exist?"

Zhao Jue simply waved a hand at Zhan Zhao. "The diagnosis of pathological split personality isn't accurate."

Zhan Zhao looked at Zhao Jue. "Is it not?"

Zhao Jue reminded Zhan Zhao, "Whether Liu Jing was using a notebook or a laptop, she was still Liu Jing, wasn't she?"

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment and frowned. "That's true... which explains why her mother and best friend didn't notice anything unusual."

"Her situation is far more complicated than split personality!" Zhao Jue shook his head. "But, at the same time, it's not as interesting as split personality! She belongs to an extremely rare category of cases, yet holds almost no value for psychological research, her case is purely pathological!"

Zhan Zhao widened his eyes at Zhao Jue – Is it really not worth studying?

"Her condition is more like a personal version of a parallel universe," Zhao Jue held up two fingers and staggered them slightly side by side. "The Liu Jing using the notebook is Liu Jing, and the one using the laptop is also Liu Jing. It's just that these two versions of Liu Jing are misaligned."

Zhan Zhao stared at Zhao Jue's two fingers.

"Imagine her brain as two intersecting railway tracks, and the tumour is the switch lever. Every time she has an episode, the tracks can switch at any moment," Zhao Jue explained. "But this situation is entirely different from split personality. Split personality has triggers, a certain personality will emerge only when a specific situation occurs. In other words, it follows a certain rationale and pattern. But with a lesion, there's no cause, no pattern, just like a headache, you never know when it will strike."

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin as he listened to Zhao Jue speak.

"Liu Jing herself clearly hadn't noticed that there was anything wrong with her, right?"

Zhan Zhao nodded.

"That suggests her blackouts must have been very brief," Zhao Jue said. "Anyone losing a few hours each day would realise something was wrong."

"That's true." Zhan Zhao agreed with that point. He had always been rather concerned about this issue, why Liu Jing had never noticed anything, and why Gao Min and Auntie Liu, who seemed to interact with her a lot, had never sensed anything unusual.

Zhao Jue agreed as well. "The strangest part, really, is the switching between the notebook and the computer. Why does Liu Jing have no memory at all of using the notebook? If there's a notebook in her bag, even if she doesn't use it, surely she would notice it?"

Zhan Zhao nodded – Indeed, even with a split personality, it would be impossible to carry around such a large notebook and not remember it.

"Then why doesn't she remember?" Zhan Zhao looked at Zhao Jue curiously, for once refraining from snapping at him.

Zhao Jue glanced at Zhan Zhao, finding him rather well-behaved for once, however...

"No idea." Zhao Jue shook his head – He was simply saying that he had never encountered such a case.

Zhan Zhao immediately wrinkled his nose and looked at him with some disdain – After all that, I thought you knew!

Zhao Jue sighed – Could you really only manage to be adorable for three seconds? Couldn't you even last to the fourth?

The two psychology geniuses were busy glaring at each other when, Dr. Shen, who was studying the surgical plan beside them, spoke up, "Perhaps part of her memory is being wiped during the episodes."

Both Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue were stunned and looked up at the doctor together. "Is that possible?"

Seeing their surprised expressions, the doctor was amused. "Honestly, you two... You two are very smart, have you never thought that your own brain might be deceiving you?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both stared at Dr. Shen.

Dr. Shen said, "When a person lies to themselves, they need a reason, for example, I'm very afraid, but I trick myself into believing I'm not. But when the brain deceives you, it doesn't need a reason. The situation you were describing just now means that she carries a notebook around with her and has clearly written a lot in it, but doesn't remember ever having it with her, right?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both nodded.

"It's her brain that made her ignore the existence of that notebook, and after each use, it erased the memory of her having used it."

"Is that possible?!" Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue looked at Dr. Shen in disbelief. Both of them were thinking, With hypnosis you could make someone overlook a notebook, but surely not in bursts like this...

"Have you two ever experienced anything like this yourselves?"

Dr. Shen took off his reading glasses, pushed them onto the top of his head, and then pretended to search around. "Where are my glasses?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both smiled knowingly – That indeed did happen.

"Also, I could be right in the middle of wanting to say something to you two, and then suddenly can't remember it no matter what." Dr. Shen spread his hands.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both stroked their chins as they looked at him – Old man, this sounds like early signs of Alzheimer's...

Dr. Shen put his glasses back on. "Anyway, there's no need to worry. Once that tumour is removed, everything will return to normal."

"Uh..." Zhan Zhao quickly waved his hand. No way, if everything goes back to normal, we'll never know what was written in the notebook!

"Could the surgery be delayed a bit?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Dr. Shen shook his head firmly. "No, for the sake of her health, it must be removed as soon as possible. Besides... her parents are anxious too. Their daughter's got a tumour in her head, how could any parents eat or sleep properly with that?"

Zhan Zhao scratched his head and looked at Zhao Jue – Aren't you supposed to be an expert? Think of something!

But Zhao Jue was helpless too – So what if I'm an expert, I don't perform brain surgery, of course we have to listen to the doctor.

While Zhan Zhao was feeling troubled, outside the office, Bai Yutang suddenly waved at him.

Just now, Bai Yutang hadn't come in with them. When he reached the door, his phone rang, so he stayed in the corridor to answer it. It was Jiang Ping who had called.

Bai Yutang had asked Jiang Ping to investigate whether any cases of women going missing had occurred near the amusement park twenty years ago.

Jiang Ping said he had checked, and there had been no missing persons cases, but hadn't it also been mentioned that a car had gone missing? Around that time, there had been a car accident in that area.

"A car accident?" Bai Yutang thought for a moment. There had been a corpse to deal with at the time, could it have been disguised as a car accident?

"Boss," Jiang Ping's tone on the other end of the line seemed rather intriguing, "guess whose accident it was."

Bai Yutang froze – Guess? Is this something I can guess?

"Didn't Pei Tian's three wives all die?" The direction Jiang Ping's words were heading caught Bai Yutang off guard.

But he quickly realised – Pei Tian's third wife had died when her car crashed off the highway. It had been ruled a suicide because a suicide note had been left behind... Surely not?

"It was Pei Tian's third wife," Jiang Ping said. "After the car crashed, it exploded. The body was burnt beyond recognition, and they confirmed her identity through the personal belongings found at the scene. The strange thing was, the suicide note hadn't been burnt."

Bai Yutang found that rather unbelievable too. "The suicide note wasn't burnt? Where was it that it managed not to burn?"

"It was in her handbag. When the car crashed, the bag was thrown out of the vehicle, and all the belongings fell on the mountainside, where they were found by the search team." Jiang Ping explained. "At the time, no DNA tests were conducted, once the identity was confirmed through the personal effects, the body was cremated."

Bai Yutang frowned, Such a coincidence?

"Can you find the vehicle information? And a photo of the deceased."

Before long, the photo and vehicle information were sent over.

The vehicle registration showed that it had indeed belonged to the deceased, with all paperwork and insurance in proper order.

Bai Yutang then looked at the photo of the deceased.

Pei Tian's third wife was called Lin Fei. As Pei Tian had said, she was a well-bred young lady from a good family, well-educated, looked quite good, and appeared very kind.

Bai Yutang took out the photo of the bandaged woman and compared them... at first glance, they did not seem alike.

But after staring at it closely for a while, Bai Yutang noticed that Lin Fei had a tiny mole on the eyelid of her right eye... just a small brown dot.

As for the bandaged woman, although the photo was not very clear, it seemed there was also a tiny brown spot on her eyelid.

Bai Yutang looked back and forth between the photos, feeling that the more he compared them, the more alike they seemed. In the end, he grew a little confused and told Jiang Ping to run a machine comparison of the two faces.

Over on Jiang Ping's side, the facial recognition software compared the two images and quickly gave a result, "Captain, it's the same person!"

Bai Yutang was stunned – It really was... That means Pei Tian's third wife didn't die back then! If we disregard Lao Tu's talk of a ghost and assume the story about switching bodies in the car accident was true, then wouldn't Lin Fei have been imprisoned in the rehabilitation centre? Where is she now? Is she still alive? Did she really commit suicide in the rehabilitation centre? Why did her whole temperament change so drastically, even though she was clearly the same person?

Bai Yutang immediately asked Jiang Ping to investigate which company the rehabilitation centre belonged to and to find out everything about the doctors, directors, and all the administrative staff at the time.

After hanging up, Bai Yutang went to find Zhan Zhao and told him that they had identified the bandaged woman.

Zhan Zhao was quite pleased – That fast?

But when he heard the result, Zhan Zhao was dumbfounded. "What?! Then... could what Lao Tu said actually be true?"

Bai Yutang wasn't sure either. Still, since they had now confirmed the identity of the bandaged woman, perhaps they could use this to exchange for Zhou Li.

Zhan Zhao thought it was possible, but... how were they going to contact the murderer?

Bai Yutang frowned – That's right, after we contacted Zhou Li's phone, it was returned. Now what can we do...

"This photo, it was taken at the rehabilitation centre, right?" Zhan Zhao held up the photo Zhao Jue had given them. "If she really was Lin Fei, then she couldn't have been the bandaged woman Pei Xiu had seen as a child, could she?"

Bai Yutang nodded. "Exactly."

"There were two versions of the story, one about a cosmetic surgery hospital, and one about a rehabilitation centre."

"Could there be other versions too?" Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao. "Should we head back to the office, or try to contact the murderer first and find Zhou Li?"

Zhan Zhao hesitated slightly, and at that moment, Bai Yutang's phone rang again.

He picked it up and saw it was Jiang Ping.

Bai Yutang raised his eyebrows at Zhan Zhao – Guess what's going on this time?

Zhan Zhao reached out and pressed the speakerphone button.

"Captain, a woman's just been dumped outside the police station," Jiang Ping said. "It's Zhou Li!"

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged a glance, then spoke in unison, "Alive?"

"Alive!"

‿︵‿︵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 26, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 25, 2025 by Soojin