S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 55

The Culinary Murderer 07 – Abandoned Stop

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Several of the young team members asked their captain – What does that mean?

The captain pointed to the rooftop and said, "That woman, while she was waiting for her boyfriend just now, she kept shifting her position. She walked both to the east and to the west, but she never stepped outside the area covered by the air cushion. So at the time, I thought she probably didn't really want to die, she just wanted to make a scene to get her boyfriend back. And when that man arrived, the spot he stood in, we could see him, which meant he could see us. Walking east would have brought him closer and made it safer to pull his girlfriend back, but he deliberately chose to walk west instead, and the place where he stood was outside the range of the air cushion. Reaching out to pull his girlfriend from there was extremely dangerous, if he missed, she would definitely have fallen outside the cushion. But when the woman walked to the edge of the cushion, she didn't move any further. When she reached out to grab her boyfriend, she used both hands."

As the captain spoke, he grabbed the handrail beside the steps and demonstrated for the team. "If someone were standing here and wanted to climb over the railing, they'd normally grab the railing with one hand and use the other to reach for the person reaching over. That would make sense. But if someone stretches out both hands from this position to grab the other person, then that person would have to lean forward. This railing is very low. Given the man's height, leaning forward would put his centre of gravity outside the railing... and his other hand wouldn't be able to reach the rail..."

The captain stopped there and looked over at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue spread his hands, indicating – Mhmm, that's the situation.

At that point, the young team members' expressions grew much more varied. Where they had looked guilty just moments before, their faces were now full of shattered beliefs. They stammered, "So... you mean... both of them did it on purpose? The woman didn't jump to kill herself, she wanted her boyfriend to fall. And the man didn't want to save her, he wanted her dead?"

The young team members took a moment to calm themselves, eventually concluding that the man was worse. If he had tried to save his girlfriend within the range of the cushion, even if they had both fallen, they'd still have landed on the cushion!

The captain looked at the group of kids, and his face showed the same kind of complicated expression that Zhao Jue had worn earlier. After a brief hesitation, he held back what he was going to say and patted each of them on the head. "That's why you should never harbour ill intentions. Don't feel guilty any more. Let's go, I'll take you out for something good to eat."

The young team members seemed to cheer up considerably. One by one, they said goodbye to Zhao Jue and Bai Ye and headed back.

Bai Ye and Zhao Jue didn't mention the car they had arrived in. Instead, they simply ordered a car nearby to pick them up.

While they were waiting at the roadside, Bai Ye asked Zhao Jue, "No matter how that man tried to save her today, it would've ended in death, right? His girlfriend would've drawn him to the edge either way."

Zhao Jue nodded, indicating that the captain was a mature adult.

"So we're just leaving it at that?" Bai Ye asked.

Zhao Jue shook his head. "It's hard to investigate. Didn't that girl's colleague say she'd been up to the rooftop a few times before, supposedly to try jumping? She was probably observing and rehearsing, to make sure she didn't leave behind any evidence."

"But the rooftop should have surveillance," Bai Ye felt this should count as premeditated murder, but it was true, even if there was footage, it would be hard to prove anything. It had all happened in just a moment...

"There's probably surveillance footage, because if the cameras were off, that would raise suspicion. But the camera angles might've been adjusted, so they probably won't be of much use. Besides..." Zhao Jue smiled helplessly, "it's probably not over yet."

"Not over?" Bai Ye saw a car approaching in the distance, which appeared to be the one they'd ordered, so he raised his hand to wave.

"Public opinion right now isn't in the woman's favour, a lot of people blame her for being dramatic and causing a death, after all, she was the one who wanted to jump, but someone else ended up dying. Sure, the man cheated on her first, but ‘he cheated' is just something people heard. Watching a living person fall to their death is something people saw. And usually, what people see has a much stronger impact than what they hear."

Bai Ye didn't quite understand, How was she going to turn public opinion around?

At that moment, the car had already pulled up in front of them.

Bai Ye and Zhao Jue got in.

The driver was a young man who seemed quite gossipy. He craned his neck to look at the traffic ahead and said, "Those two jumped from over there just now, didn't they? Did you see it?"

Bai Ye and Zhao Jue couldn't help but sigh, it really didn't take much these days for something to stir up the whole city.

"Did the guy really push the girl?"

Bai Ye was slightly taken aback. "What?"

Zhao Jue, on the other hand, didn't look surprised at all. He nodded knowingly.

"When the girl was being taken to the ambulance just now, she kept saying ‘He pushed me...'"

The young driver was quite eager and pulled out his phone to show them.

It was footage from earlier, various livestream clips taken from different angles by online influencers. The content was basically the same: the paramedics were loading a clearly disoriented Guan Xiaohong into the ambulance, and she was muttering to herself. Many of the videos were quite clear, and some had even thoughtfully added subtitles.

Guan Xiaohong kept repeating over and over, "He pushed me, he pushed me so I grabbed with both hands, I didn't mean to... he pushed me..."

On the video, a stream of on-screen comments kept flashing by. A lot of people also found it odd, why had the boyfriend taken a roundabout route to reach her? Putting all the pieces together, it now made perfect sense: the man hadn't intended to save his girlfriend, he'd wanted to push her off the roof...

Sure enough, looking at the comments and replies, they were almost entirely in support of the woman. Everyone said that heaven had eyes this time, that she shouldn't feel guilty, and that she should find a good man in the future...

Bai Ye glanced at Zhao Jue – So that's how it is...

The young driver kept talking while driving, "These days, all the good cabbages are getting eaten by pigs. I heard that guy came from a poor background, even had his tuition paid by the girl's part-time jobs. They bought an apartment together, he must've thought that if she died, the property would be his."

Bai Ye looked at Zhao Jue – After being together for so long, the woman must've figured out that the man would try to harm her, right?

Zhao Jue shrugged – She'd anticipated his move in advance... but there's no evidence at all to prove it. And honestly... this sort of logic isn't easy to untangle. If the man had no malicious intent and was trying to save her but ended up dying, then the woman was guilty of premeditated murder. But if the man did intend to kill, then could it count as self-defence on her part?

Bai Ye frowned – Can this be considered self-defence?

Zhao Jue thought for a moment – But if the man hadn't tried to kill her first, would the woman have thought of killing him? Or even been able to succeed? Even if she'd planned it all out, things that haven't happened yet can't be assumed to turn out a certain way.

Noticing that Bai Ye seemed a little concerned, Zhao Jue waved a hand dismissively – These days, it's not like we're short of bad people, we can't possibly deal with them all.

So Bai Ye didn't dwell on it any further.

But the young driver was still quite chatty. As he talked on, he suddenly said, "Ai, but this area's never really been that peaceful anyway."

Zhao Jue noticed the driver glancing now and then at the right side mirror, so he turned to look as well. They were driving past an abandoned bus stop at the side of the road.

The road was flanked by hills on both sides, with dense trees and beautiful scenery, it just felt oddly quiet with so few people around. The bus stop had nothing but a broken shelter and a few worn-out plastic chairs. The advertising board behind the seats was smashed, and the poster inside had faded with age, leaving only a filthy scrap of fabric...

Zhao Jue thought about it, then suddenly perked up and asked the young driver, "Was that the legendary..."

"Route 48 bus stop."

Zhao Jue and the young driver said it almost in unison. After speaking, both of them wore equally mysterious expressions.

Zhao Jue kept looking back at the bus stop, as if he were seriously considering stopping to have a look.

Bai Ye was slightly puzzled, feeling as though he'd missed something important.

"What's the route 48 bus stop?" Bai Ye asked, confused.

"Oh? You've never heard of it, handsome?" the young driver said with a grin. "It's one of the most famous horror incidents in S City. Not just an urban legend either, it was a real event, even reported in the news."

Bai Ye thought to himself that horror stories about buses tended to fall into the same few categories: passengers who weren't human, or buses that drove into another world, that sort of thing.

"You've never heard of it?" Zhao Jue also looked surprised. "Aren't you close with those two kids? They never told you about it?"

Bai Ye was puzzled. "What's it got to do with them?"

"Everything, it happened when they were in middle school," Zhao Jue said with a smile.

Bai Ye really hadn't expected that, so he asked Zhao Jue to explain it properly.

Zhao Jue asked the driver which version he knew, but since it had been on the local news, everyone was probably familiar with the same story.

"That used to be a stop for route 48. Behind the bus stop, there used to be a mountain path, but after the incident, they demolished the road and now it's all overgrown with weeds, so you can't see it any more," the driver explained to Bai Ye in detail. "That path led to the top of the mountain, there's an observatory up there."

Bai Ye quickly pictured that part of S City in his head. There was indeed an observatory on the mountain top, though normally people went up from the other side of the mountain. Halfway up there was a natural history museum, and at the foot of the mountain, there was a geological park with a dinosaur fossil excavation site, he'd brought Mia there to play once...

"This side of the mountain's the shaded face, and the other side gets the sun. Back then, the road on the sunny side hadn't been fully developed, but the observatory was popular and lots of schoolchildren went there on trips. Most vehicles would stop around that bus stop just now, and people would hike up the little path. It took about half an hour to reach the top, and you could take photos along the way. I used to come here all the time when I was little."

Bai Ye pictured Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang as middle school students going on a spring outing up the mountain. He imagined Bai Yutang going up and down the mountain in the time it took Zhan Zhao to reach halfway, and most likely arguing the whole way. Who knew if they'd fought over snacks too, though Bai Yutang was definitely the one carrying the bag. In fact, Zhan Zhao had probably made him carry his as well in the end.

"That happened twelve years ago. Back then, a group of students from a middle school in S City went up to the observatory to observe an astronomical event. I remember it was June, very hot, and there was a solar eclipse," the young driver said in an exaggerated tone. "The weather forecast warned that there'd be a torrential downpour after the eclipse. Around three hundred students went in total, split into three groups, each led by a few teachers. The first two groups made it down the mountain and onto the buses without a hitch. But when the last group was coming down, they got caught in the torrential downpour. The students all put on those fluorescent yellow rain ponchos the school had given them."

"But when they got to the foot of the mountain and were boarding the bus at the stop, the teachers did a headcount and realised one was missing. The teachers called the teachers on the buses that had already left, and after counting, found someone was still missing. Since the trip had been organised by class, it was easy to figure out who it was, it was a girl... Some students said they'd seen her go down early. As it happened, the girl had never really fit in, she was often late or left early. The teachers just assumed she'd left early again, so they took the rest of the students and got on the bus. Then the rain got even heavier. When they got back to school, they arranged for the students to do self-study, but the girl's homeroom teacher had a bad feeling about it and kept trying to reach her family. But no one was answering the phone."

"In the end, the teacher got so worried that she went straight to the address registered with the school to look for the girl. Turned out the girl's home was near the observatory, so that put the teacher a bit more at ease, maybe she'd just gone straight home. But guess where the teacher ended up when she followed the address?"

Bai Ye glanced at Zhao Jue, who clearly wanted him to guess, he already knew the answer.

"Where did she end up?" Uncle Ye asked, playing along with the driver's storytelling atmosphere.

"Heh heh..." The young driver lowered his voice, as if he were about to deliver the punchline, and said with a ghostly tone, "A grave."

‿︵‿︵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: May , 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 1, 2025 by Angel