S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 49

The Culinary Murderer 01 – Split Into Two

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Everyone at SCI was off duty today, but Big Brother Bai didn't have a day off. Early in the morning, he was woken by the twins, who forced him to memorise his speech.

It was a rare occasion that Gongsun was still lying in bed, refusing to get up, and Big Brother Bai felt he was missing out.

"Why don't you two just go?" Big Brother Bai waved his hand, deciding to go back and lie down with Gongsun.

"Today's the food city opening!"

"They've asked you to cut the ribbon and you're thinking of not going?!"

"Where's your ambition?!"

The twins questioned Big Brother Bai.

Bai Jintang pointed at Gongsun lying in bed – My ambition is right there.

Gongsun reached out and touched his chin, and Big Brother Bai promptly shooed the twins away.

The twins picked up pillows and whacked their big brother, each pulling on one arm as they dragged Bai Jintang out the door. Gongsun yawned as he leaned back on the bed, turned over, and decided to sleep through till noon.

The twins dragged the boss out to work. When they got downstairs, they saw Bai Chi in his pyjamas feeding the cats in the living room.

A neat row of big and small cats was lined up by the coffee table, having their breakfast.

The television was on, and the morning news was also covering the food competition.

Big Brother Bai was tying his tie while watching the news segment introducing the various dining and entertainment facilities inside the food city.

The twins looked delighted as they watched and helped themselves to the juice Bai Chi had made.

Bai Jintang asked the two quietly, "You two, have you checked the building? What about the floors, rooms, partitions, storerooms... any corpses?"

The twins nearly choked on their juice and started knocking on every wooden surface nearby. "You're talking nonsense! Knock on wood!"

Big Brother Bai gave a short laugh and looked at the twins with an expression that seemed to say – There's no escaping it! What's meant to happen will happen!

"There's no one else going today. Qi Le, Chen Yu, Xu Lie, none of them are going! It's just you!"

The twins pointed at Bai Jintang in unison. "If something happens today, that means you're the culprit!"

On the nearby sofa, Zhao Zhen, who was lying down, shook his head – Can't we have just one day without a murderer? Aren't any of you tired of it?

At that moment, the news began reporting a disappearance: a couple in their thirties had vanished from their apartment. It had been five days since the family reported it to the police, and there was still no sign of them.

Bai Chi recalled that when he went to Bao Sir's office yesterday to collect some documents, he overheard the missing persons investigation team discussing this case. There seemed to be some disagreement within the team, some believed it wasn't a missing persons case but a murder, while others thought the couple had simply gone into hiding to avoid their debts.

Bao Sir was quite troubled by it too.

"I think I've seen that video!"

"You mean the one where the surveillance captured the couple going into the apartment, but didn't show them coming out, right?"

The twins joined in the conversation as well. Because the surveillance footage was so weird, all sorts of interpretations were circulating online, and the case was drawing a lot of attention.

"What do you mean they didn't come out after going in?" Zhao Zhen was a little intrigued.

Xiao Bai Chi took out his phone and pulled up the widely shared video online for him to watch.

The video was footage from a security camera in the corridor of the apartment complex where the incident had occurred. The quality wasn't particularly clear, but just about good enough to make things out. The surveillance captured the couple returning home from work one after the other, stepping out of the elevator, taking out their keys, and entering their apartment.

After that, no one was seen entering or leaving that apartment again, until three days later, when the wife's colleague, unable to reach her, came to the apartment and eventually called the police.

The police reviewed the footage and brought someone in to break the lock.

But when they entered the apartment, they found it spotlessly clean, with no one inside.

Somehow, the video ended up circulating online, and once it was reposted by clickbait marketing accounts who spiced up the headlines, it instantly became a mysterious urban-legend-level disappearance. Even the news started reporting on it, and everyone was asking where the couple went.

Then, as is often the case with viral news, some people began digging into the couple's backgrounds, others started fabricating stories, and all sorts of attention-seekers were sensationalising the case to outrageous degrees.

Someone even came forward claiming that the couple both had a bad gambling habit and had apparently racked up a lot of debt, so maybe they'd run away.

Then came the rumour that the husband had been cheating, had conspired with his mistress to harm the wife, and was now in hiding until the dust settled.

And then there was the self-proclaimed genius who declared that the truth could only be one thing: the only party capable of tampering with the surveillance footage was the property management, so the property management must be the murderer.

The police department's missing persons team originally specialised in cases of trafficking and kidnapping. This was their first time investigating a disappearance into thin air case, and the team had watched the complex's internal and external surveillance footage countless times. That couple had gone in but never come out, it was like something supernatural!

Zhao Zhen finished watching the video but didn't make any comments and simply handed the phone back to Bai Chi.

The twins immediately asked him, "Well? Did you spot any flaws?"

Zhao Zhen spread his hands. "The footage isn't complete, there's nothing to see."

"Could it be a murder case?" Bai Jintang analysed, "Someone else entered the apartment, killed the couple, and then secretly moved the bodies?"

But Xiao Bai Chi shook his head. "Bao Sir had the criminal investigation team look into it. Forensic Doctor Yang also went with a team. The forensics team didn't find any traces of blood or signs of a struggle in the apartment, and their water and electricity usage was all perfectly normal. The apartment is on the eighteenth floor, and all the windows are fitted with concealed security bars, there's no way for someone inside to get out or for anyone outside to get in."

"That weird?" The twins had assumed the marketing accounts had exaggerated things, they hadn't expected the real situation to be even more bizarre.

Bai Chi nodded. "So the other day, Bao Sir said that if there were still no leads after the weekend, the case would be handed over to us at SCI."

Bai Jintang shook his head. "Sure enough, can't even have a few days of peace."

......

In the car heading towards the seafood market, as they passed a residential complex, Bai Yutang glanced inside.

Bai Ye noticed and also had a look at the complex, then asked, "That missing couple case?"

Bai Yutang nodded at once. So Uncle Ye watched this sort of news too.

In the back seat, Zhan Zhao, who had been catching up on sleep, opened his eyes and looked at the complex through the window.

There were still a few police cars parked outside the complex's entrance, it looked like the investigation was still ongoing today.

"Bao Sir said if there are no clues by the end of the weekend, the case will be handed to us," Bai Yutang felt they'd most likely be starting the investigation next week.

"This couple, what did they do?" Bai Ye asked, curious.

Bai Yutang had briefly skimmed through the basic details yesterday. "The husband was a chef, and the wife was a floor manager. Both of them worked at the same hotel, so when they stopped showing up to work and couldn't be reached, that's when suspicion arose."

"All those rumours about gambling and affairs, are they true?" Zhao Jue suddenly spoke up.

Zhan Zhao, who was in the middle of yawning, glanced at him – Weren't you asleep?

Zhao Jue grabbed a pillow to prop behind his waist and grumbled, "This seat is terribly uncomfortable!"

"I haven't looked too closely," Bai Yutang saw that they were nearing the market ahead and beginning to search for the entrance to the parking garage.

It was Zhao Jue's first time here, too. He leaned against the window, asking, "The market's that big?"

Zhan Zhao added, "It only sells seafood!"

Zhao Jue narrowed his eyes. "Sure enough, they really do sell whales!"

Both Bai Yutang and Bai Ye turned back to give him a look – As if!

Zhao Jue pointed to a massive whale-shaped balloon up ahead.

"That's for promotion, the market's mascot is an orca."

Zhao Jue looked utterly incredulous. "Even a market has a mascot? Then does a beef noodle shop use beef as its mascot? And what about Hannibal, does he use people?"

Bai Yutang and Bai Ye both shook their heads speechlessly, they had no desire to engage in his nonsense.

Zhan Zhao, now well-rested and more energetic, joined in the banter with Zhao Jue. "I already told you that even if there are whales for sale, we don't eat whales! Whales eat seafood too, so what's wrong with having one as the seafood market's mascot?"

Zhao Jue looked at Zhan Zhao with a mischievous grin. "Wouldn't a cat be more fitting then? Why don't you be the mascot?"

Zhan Zhao hit Zhao Jue with a pillow, and Zhao Jue retaliated with one of his own.

Bai Yutang was shaking his head in exasperation as he drove, but Bai Ye suddenly remembered something and said to Bai Yutang, "I've come across a similar case before, where someone vanishes without a trace."

Bai Yutang drove up to the second level of the parking garage, surprised by how many cars there were. So many people out this early? He kept driving up and asked Bai Ye, "Also vanished from inside an apartment?"

"More or less." Bai Ye nodded, then asked, "Have you ever heard of the Bobbit worm?"

As a clean freak, Bai Yutang instinctively felt uncomfortable all over the moment he heard the word worm – Maybe let's just go back to talking about the disappearance?

"This kind of worm lives in the sea. It can grow up to three metres long, has a mouth like a pair of scissors on its head, and looks like a giant centipede."

As Bai Ye described it, Bai Yutang began to feel goosebumps rise all over his body. He glanced resentfully at the passenger seat – Uncle Ye, don't learn from those two!

At the same time, "those two" in the back stopped hitting each other with pillows and instead, they leaned forward to listen to Bai Ye talking about the worm, intrigued – What did this have to do with the disappearance case?

"These worms might be long, but most of the time, over ninety per cent of their bodies are buried in the sea sand. Only their heads are exposed, and they look just like plants on the sea floor... Once a fish gets close, they snap down on it and devour it. These worms are vicious and venomous, they can even eat pufferfish. But none of that is what makes their mouths truly terrifying."

Bai Yutang finally found a parking spot. As he parked, he asked, "That's not the most terrifying part?"

"The terrifying part is that when the worm is severed, it becomes two."

Bai Yutang parked the car, his expression full of distaste – What a disgusting creature.

"So?" Zhan Zhao asked. "What does this have to do with the disappearance case?"

"Two living people walked into a closed apartment and then vanished, right?" Bai Ye unfastened his seatbelt and got ready to get out. "Then that apartment is the Bobbit worm, and the two of them were its prey. After swallowing them, the worm split in two, one half, the part with the food, slithered away. And in the half that remained, no matter how you searched, you'd never find the prey."

"How can an apartment split in two..." Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao repeated the phrase, then suddenly let out an "Ah!" and asked together, "They built a wall?! Turned one apartment into two?"

"But there were no signs of a struggle or any blood at the scene. Could it be that the couple separated the apartment themselves... The forensics team searched the place from top to bottom, but they didn't find any new walls..." Zhan Zhao muttered to himself for a moment, then suddenly came to a realisation. "No, that couple aren't the victims, they're the murderers!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Angel: For your sanity, do not google what a Bobbit worm is. I did while translating this chapter and it's horrible... I'm with Bai Yutang on this one, it's disgusting...

Soojin: I did and I wish I didnt. "It ranges in length from less than 10 cm to nearly 3 m." Like damn.

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: May 6, 2025 by Angel

Edited: July 20, 2025 by Soojin