S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 38

The Card Murderer 38 – Lucky Charm

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"How exactly did you draw it?"

Zhang Yu looked at Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue with a face full of confusion.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both raised their chins at him, meaning – Look at your own expression.

Zhang Yu started looking around for a mirror.

Ma Xin lent him her compact.

Zhang Yu looked at his own expression in the small mirror – Is it really that obvious?

Off to the side, Zhao Hu and the others were all shaking their heads, indicating – It's not obvious at all, only those two charlatans can see it.

Bai Yutang was more concerned about the case, so he asked Zhang Yu, "What happened after you drew it? What happened to them?"

"Wow." Zhang Yu recalled it and seemed to find it rather amusing. "They were pretty much on the verge of a breakdown, and their expressions looked like they'd seen a ghost, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they'd lost all hope!"

"That serious?" Zhan Zhao seemed unable to understand. "What was the reason?"

"They didn't say," Zhang Yu recalled the situation at the time. "Their reaction was very strange. They were shouting, 'We failed!' and 'Still not successful!'..."

"Failed, still not successful?" Zhan Zhao muttered those words.

Hu Zi shook his head at the side. "Those two really look like typical cult believers."

Bai Chi, holding two cards, asked, "What cards did they draw? Could there be that much of a difference? It sounds like they pulled the Joker or something."

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "Earlier, Lao Tu said that the bandaged woman at the rehabilitation centre also went crazy and ran out because she drew a card..."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both nodded.

Zhang Yu also said, "Later on, those two did indeed run away."

"They ran away?"

"Yeah!" Zhang Yu sounded quite displeased as he said, "They even ran without paying. I've seen people dine and dash, but this was the first time I've seen someone do a dine-and-dash for a ritual!"

"Have you seen those two again since?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked together.

Zhang Yu shook his head and looked at the photos they had given him.

"Right." Zhang Yu picked up the photo again and looked at it for a while, as if he had confirmed something. Pointing at Pei Xiu in the photo, he said, "This one might not be the mysterious person."

Everyone looked at him with clear disbelief – Brother, you have face blindness! Whether you recognise someone or not, your words really couldn't be trusted...

But Zhang Yu kept waving his hand and said, "That man had a tattoo!"

Zhang Yu pointed to his own wrist, seemed to confirm left from right, and finally pointed very firmly to the inner side of his right wrist. "Right here, there was a tattoo!"

Zhan Zhao examined the photo carefully. Indeed, on the student's right wrist, there was a faint trace of black, which seemed to be a line... If one did not look closely, one might have thought it was a rubber band or a bracelet, but after Zhang Yu pointed it out, it did look a bit like a tattoo.

"Pei Xiu doesn't have one," Bai Yutang confirmed with Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao recalled that Pei Xiu wore a watch on his left wrist, and nothing at all on his right wrist... not even a scar, let alone a tattoo.

"What kind of tattoo was it?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Bai Chi handed Zhang Yu some paper and a pen.

Zhang Yu thought for a moment and then drew it out.

The image was not complicated. It was divided into two rows, the first row showed four card suits–spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs.

The second row depicted a pocket watch with a long chain.

The chain wrapped around the heart symbol from the row above.

Although the forms were different, the elements seemed somewhat similar to the condition of Zhang Yuancheng's corpse.

"Coincidence?" Zhan Zhao focused his attention on the pocket watch... Zhang Yu had drawn the hands.

Zhan Zhao asked him, "Did you draw the time at random, or was the tattooed watch actually set to that time?"

Zhang Yu said, "If I remember correctly, it was set to that time."

According to the pocket watch in the drawing, the time was exactly five o'clock.

"Wait a moment..."

Gongsun pulled out the photos of Zhang Yuancheng's corpse and laid them out on the table. "The pocket watch hanging from Zhang Yuancheng's hand was also stopped at five o'clock."

"What time did he die?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked.

"Roughly around five o'clock," Gongsun said, and added that there were other clues.

He took out a close-up photo of Zhang Yuancheng's hand. "On the wrist of the severed hand, there was a scar... Although it seemed that someone deliberately damaged this part of the skin during the cutting, you could still tell there was a scar. And it looked like it had been caused by a chemical burn. I had been wondering what kind of scar it was, but now it seems... it's very likely a scar left from tattoo removal."

Everyone was momentarily stunned.

"Could it be... that Zhang Yuancheng was actually the person in the photo?" Zhan Zhao handed Zhang Yu a photo of Zhang Yuancheng for him to identify.

Zhang Yu frowned after looking at it and said he couldn't tell...

Everyone could not help but hold their heads again – We forgot about this face-blind guy...

"There's indeed a difference of a few years in age," Bai Yutang calculated and found it did not quite match.

"Could it be..." Zhan Zhao suddenly understood why the photo had been altered to Pei Xiu's face. "To conceal the real age?"

"That's possible!" Gongsun found it plausible. "Pei Xiu doesn't know either of these two people at all. If they had ever been classmates, even if they had never taken a photo together, it would be impossible for him to say he had never seen them."

"It's a good idea," Zhao Jue nodded as well. "By replacing the group photo, they could muddle the timeline."

"If this person was Zhang Yuancheng, then they should be a bit younger than Pei Xiu. So altering it to match Pei Xiu's year, could it be because..."

"Because of those rumours about Pei Xiu," Zhan Zhao said. "There were claims that a death had occurred when Pei Xiu was in middle school."

Bai Yutang instructed Jiang Ping to investigate whether there had been any suspicious deaths around that time and also to conduct a thorough background check on Wang Qiu and Fang Jie, as well as on Zhang Yuancheng.

"We've already looked into Zhang Yuancheng," Jiang Ping took out Zhang Yuancheng's file.

Zhan Zhao had previously asked him to look into the detailed backgrounds of the people from the publishing house, and as the deceased, Zhang Yuancheng had naturally been the first to be investigated.

"Taking a break from school?" Zhan Zhao noticed that during the transition from middle school to high school, Zhang Yuancheng had taken a two-year leave of absence.

"So although he was a university classmate of Liu Jing and Gao Min, he wasn't the same age, right?"

Jiang Ping nodded. "He was two years older."

After entering the relevant dates, Jiang Ping quickly uncovered another lead. "The year Pei Xiu transferred schools, there really was a death, though strictly speaking, it was more like an accident."

"An accident?"

"Mhmm. It happened during a drama club performance, a student died suddenly of a heart attack. The child had a hereditary heart condition," Jiang Ping scrolled through the information. "But two years later, when Pei Xiu had already transferred abroad... there was a case of a female teacher's disappearance at the school."

"A teacher disappeared?" Zhan Zhao examined the file. "She was never found?"

"No family ever reported her missing. Before she vanished, the teacher had gone through a painful breakup, her colleagues said she had been abandoned by her long-term boyfriend and her mental state had been unstable during that time," Jiang Ping reviewed the disappearance records. "Some suspected that she had run away or taken her own life out of heartbreak. She had no family, so no one filed a missing persons report. After the school contacted the police, the matter wasn't pursued any further..."

"Another person with no one to rely on?" Zhan Zhao read through the file.

Bai Yutang took out his phone and looked at Zhan Zhao – Do you want to call Gao Min to ask about Zhang Yuancheng?

Zhan Zhao nodded and said he would ask about it.

Bai Yutang called Gao Min.

At that moment, Gao Min was at the hospital keeping Liu Jing company. Upon hearing that her friend, who had only just regained consciousness, was now facing brain surgery, she had lost all desire to work and had simply taken leave to stay by her side.

"What? Yuancheng took two years off from school?" Gao Min looked at Liu Jing.

Liu Jing also seemed to be hearing about it for the first time. She looked at Gao Min in puzzlement. "Wasn't he the same age as us?"

Gao Min put the call on speakerphone.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang realised that neither of them knew Zhang Yuancheng had once taken some time off from school.

"Did he have any tattoos on his hands?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"He had a scar on his hand," Liu Jing said. "He said he got burned when he was a child."

Zhan Zhao sent them a photo of the tattoo sketch Zhang Yu had drawn earlier, asking if either of them had ever seen that pattern.

Liu Jing frowned and stared at it for a while, starting to feel uncomfortable as she recalled Zhang Yuancheng's corpse... A shadow still lingered in her heart.

Gao Min quickly took the phone and walked to the doorway to take the call.

"I think it looks a bit familiar..." Gao Min said. "I feel like I've seen it somewhere."

"Where?" Zhan Zhao prompted her to think carefully.

Gao Min pondered for a long time. "Erm..."

Gao Min was a little uncertain for the moment, so Zhan Zhao told her to think about it carefully and to let them know as soon as she remembered.

After hanging up, Gao Min frowned – I seem to have seen a similar pattern before, but where exactly?

......

Just as Zhan Zhao ended the call, he saw a policewoman at the door accompanying Zhou Li inside.

Zhou Li was still wearing the clothes she had worn when she went missing, looking somewhat dishevelled.

The policewoman said that physically there was no problem, but... she stood behind Zhou Li and discreetly gestured towards her head.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned – Was she stimulated by something?

The policewoman quickly left after returning her.

Ma Xin wanted to pull over a chair for Zhou Li, but Zhou Li's behaviour was rather strange.

She tilted her head back slightly, curiously inspecting SCI's office, her fingers scraping against the tabletop with her nails, making an irritating scratching noise.

As she wandered and looked around, her manner was not only curious but also somewhat scrutinising, as if she were there to conduct an inspection.

What puzzled Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang even more was... that they had both seen Zhou Li earlier at the publishing house.

The first impression Zhou Li had given them was that of someone mild-tempered and smiling, her manner of speaking and behaviour both very proper.

Later, after Pei Yun had come downstairs, Zhou Li seemed a little timid... In short, she had not come across as a strong person.

But now, her entire expression had changed, there was no sign of timidity or gentleness. Instead, her gaze carried a trace of arrogance, as though she did not take them seriously at all.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao in puzzlement – Acting?

Zhan Zhao was not certain either.

Everyone turned their eyes to this strange "victim".

After seemingly looking around enough, Zhou Li walked over to the sofa and sat down, right beside Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue turned his head to glance at her.

She was also looking at Zhao Jue.

Gongsun was reading Zhou Li's medical examination report, which the policewoman had handed him.

The examination showed that Zhou Li had not sustained any injuries. Under the physical features section, it stated that there was a tattoo on her hand...

Gongsun glanced at Zhou Li's hand and noticed that she was wearing a watch with a rather wide leather strap on her left wrist, so he signalled subtly to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao asked her, "Would you mind taking off your watch?"

Zhou Li looked at Zhan Zhao but did not refuse. She reached out and took off the watch...

Once the strap was removed, everyone clearly saw a tattoo on her wrist... It was a design similar to the one Zhang Yu had drawn.

Similarly, the first row featured the four card suits.

The difference was that, in the second row, the pocket watch chain wound around the diamond, and the time was not set to five o'clock but to seven o'clock.

Bai Yutang pointed at the tattoo and asked Zhou Li, "What does this mean?"

Zhou Li lowered her head, glanced at the tattoo on her hand, and gave a slight smile, "A lucky charm."

Bai Yutang found that even her tone and voice did not quite sound like Zhou Li's.

Zhan Zhao also asked, "Are you Zhou Li?"

Zhou Li shook her head, a strange smile curling at the corner of her lips.

"Then who are you?"

Zhou Li swept her gaze over the photographs on the table. Suddenly, she picked up the photo of the woman with the bandaged face, held it up beside her own, and gave an exaggerated, stiff smile.

Zhao Hu quietly scooted his chair backwards, hiding behind Ma Han.

Meanwhile, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue instinctively leaned forward... My god, had she been possessed?

Bai Yutang silently sighed, unsure whether the eerie Zhou Li in front of him, who seemed possessed by a ghost, or the even stranger Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, who were eager to identify the ghost with their bare eyes, were more bizarre.

‿︵‿︵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 29, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 29, 2025 by Soojin