S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 57

The Culinary Murderer 09 – Déjà Vu

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Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao wandered from the second floor of the mall up to the seventh, buying a bunch of things.

Meanwhile, a bunch of idle people at home kept sending messages.

Zhao Jue said he needed a coffee pot, the one at home had been smashed.

The twins asked them to buy two pillows and two summer quilts.

Xiao Bai Chi wanted a keyboard and a data cable.

Mia asked for a power bank and a plain white T-shirt.

Eleven wanted a 24-inch suitcase.

The two of them, carrying large and small bags, felt like they weren't out shopping but running errands.

Zhan Zhao felt that shopping was even more exhausting than going to work. After finally getting to the top floor and buying the suitcase, he couldn't hold it in anymore. Pointing at the enormous suitcase, he said, "Why buy such a huge suitcase? To hide a corpse in it?!"

Bai Yutang, trying to calm Zhan Zhao who was on the verge of snapping from exhaustion, dragged him to a bubble tea shop, ordered two cups, and told him to sit and wait a while. Then he packed everything up and put it into the suitcase.

Bai Yutang wheeled the suitcase downstairs and loaded everything into the car. Since they would be going home to see his parents later, they couldn't show up empty-handed, they still needed to buy some fruit and a bottle of wine or something.

Zhan Zhao, resting his chin on his hand and leaning on the table, waited for the bubble tea while observing the surroundings.

It was the weekend, after all, and the bubble tea shop was quite busy. People were gathered in small groups, chatting and scrolling on their phones.

There were two large screens on the wall, one displaying order numbers and the other broadcasting a local TV programme.

The news was reporting an incident at a hospital, it seemed a girl had suffered a heart attack and died in a hospital ward.

At the table next to Zhan Zhao, a few girls who looked like students were visibly shocked when they heard the news.

"No way! She survived jumping off a building but ended up dying in the hospital?"

"That's insane, what are the chances?"

"So unlucky, she finally got rid of that scumbag boyfriend."

"That observatory is seriously cursed!"

Zhan Zhao hadn't thought much of it at first, just listening absentmindedly, but the phrase "That observatory is seriously cursed" lodged itself in his ear.

Zhan Zhao took out his phone and started looking up the news.

The local headlines were all about the jumping incident, with both videos and written reports.

Zhan Zhao got a general idea of what had happened and picked a few of the most-viewed videos to watch.

After watching, he wasn't especially concerned about who pushed whom or who grabbed whom... after all, both people were now dead.

What caught Zhan Zhao's attention were three things that, on the surface, didn't seem to have much to do with the incident itself.

First, the boyfriend who had fallen to his death, Zhang Wei, looked oddly familiar, as though he'd seen him somewhere recently.

Second, the name Guan Xiaohong sounded familiar, though it probably wasn't something he'd heard recently...

Lastly, just before Zhang Wei fell, he seemed to have become distracted.

Zhan Zhao tapped at his phone, trying hard to scrub the video back and forth to get a clearer look...

After watching it several times, he confirmed he hadn't imagined it. At the very moment Zhang Wei reached out to grab Guan Xiaohong, his attention seemed to be caught by something in the distance. He lifted his head and stared blankly for a second. It was that momentary distraction, coupled with Guan Xiaohong tugging him, that caused him to fall.

Zhan Zhao was curious about what exactly he had seen, so he wanted to check if there were any videos taken from another angle.

Just then, something cold suddenly touched his face.

Startled, Zhan Zhao looked up and saw Bai Yutang standing beside him, holding two drinks, one of which had just been pressed against his face.

Just now, after Bai Yutang finished loading the car, he came back upstairs and found Zhan Zhao sitting with his head down, completely concentrating on his phone. The big screen showed that their order was ready, so he went to collect the bubble tea.

After Zhan Zhao took the drink, Bai Yutang sat down and asked, "Where to next?"

Zhan Zhao looked a bit puzzled. "Weren't we going to your parents'?"

Bai Yutang waved his hand. "I just called home. No one's home, they said they went out for a meal, some class reunion or something..."

"Class reunion..." Zhan Zhao paused slightly, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. He asked Bai Yutang, "Didn't we have a middle school classmate called Zhang Wei?"

Bai Yutang didn't seem surprised. He replied, "Pretty much everyone had a classmate called Zhang Wei."

That made Zhan Zhao laugh. He opened the news on his phone and found a relatively clear photo to show him.

Bai Yutang studied it for a moment, thought about it, and said, "Oh... I think so, he was in the class next door. He used to be a bit chubbier when we were kids."

Bai Yutang glanced at the news article too and frowned. "He's dead?"

"When we were in seventh grade, we had a maths teacher with the surname Guan, do you remember her?" Zhan Zhao asked again.

This time, Bai Yutang didn't need to think, and he nodded. "How could I forget? She was the homeroom teacher of that girl who went missing, wasn't she?"

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao had been skipping grades since they were young. Their parents had been worried they were too young, so the early skips were done slowly, meaning they were about two years younger than their classmates when they started middle school. But after seventh grade, they skipped through rapidly, especially Zhan Zhao, who had barely attended high school. On top of that, he wasn't particularly outgoing, so he hadn't interacted much with classmates... but Zhan Zhao had an excellent memory. Never mind middle school, he even remembered kids from nursery school, especially the super naughty one who used to sit next to him, and who happened to be sitting right across from him now.

"Miss Guan, doesn't she have a daughter called Guan Xiaohong?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Bai Yutang didn't know about that. "Miss Guan's a woman, isn't she... her daughter has the same surname as her?"

Zhan Zhao nodded. "Her husband cheated on her while she was pregnant. Miss Guan divorced him while she was heavily pregnant, and gave the child her own surname after giving birth. I think she remarried later and had a son, but they apparently divorced again... Whether she married again after that, I'm not sure. Her daughter went to the same school as us, though I think she was a grade above. But it's said she didn't do well in her first university entrance exam, so she repeated a grade."

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao with some admiration. "Cat, where did you get all this from?"

Zhan Zhao muttered quietly, "I overheard it when classmates were gossiping. And didn't our moms always gossip together too... I was forced to hear it, but once I hear something, I just can't forget it, it gets stored in my brain forever."

Bai Yutang felt that sometimes, having such an extraordinary memory wasn't necessarily a good thing.

After finishing their bubble tea, the two of them discussed what to do next and decided to visit a nearby art gallery.

Lately, Zhan Zhao had been influenced by Zhao Jue and had taken quite a liking to modern art exhibitions. Bai Yutang wasn't particularly interested in artwork, but he liked the peaceful environment that most galleries provided.

They walked through a commercial street and entered a park.

It was an art park, dotted with various galleries of all sizes, as well as a few theatres that often hosted performances.

Zhan Zhao looked at the park's guide and noticed a large exhibition area featuring an exhibition on indoor spatial zoning.

After reading the description, Zhan Zhao found it quite intriguing and pulled Bai Yutang with him to go see it.

"What's a spatial zoning exhibition?" Bai Yutang asked as he picked up a brochure at the entrance. He was reading it while walking alongside Zhan Zhao, and when he looked up... he found they had stepped into a rather peculiar "space."

The exhibition hall was divided into numerous corridors, filled with branching paths and rooms, resembling a labyrinth. The surroundings were disorienting, with windows, hanging mirrors, and images designed to confuse one's spatial sense. The walls were sprayed with dot patterns in a pop-art style. Once inside, it became difficult to tell east from west, and north from south, some areas even gave the illusion of being turned upside down.

There weren't many people in the exhibition. A few had become stuck at the end of a corridor and couldn't find a way out, they were shouting for help continuously.

However, Zhan Zhao made it out quite smoothly, all because Bai Yutang led him the whole way.

About ten seconds after entering and getting disoriented, Bai Yutang quickly adapted to the environment, saw through all the visual tricks, and smoothly guided Zhan Zhao to the exit.

As they emerged, the light at the exit lit up and a prompt sounded: "Time taken, seven minutes and three seconds. Current ranking: number one."

"Impressive, impressive."

Next to the exit was a table where a young woman was handing out brochures. She looked up and clapped her hands, and when she saw they were two handsome guys, she smiled even more happily.

"The previous best time was well over ten minutes, yours is a new record! We've held exhibitions in several cities, and you two are the first to make it out in under ten minutes!"

As she spoke, she beckoned them over to claim a prize.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both surprised – There are prizes?

The young woman took an envelope from a drawer and handed it to them, along with a white, cube-shaped plastic box about the size of a Rubik's Cube.

Zhan Zhao took the envelope, and Bai Yutang took the box.

When Zhan Zhao opened the envelope, he found a folded map inside. Once unfolded, it turned out to be an image roughly 4K in resolution, resembling some kind of board game.

Bai Yutang opened the box, which contained a compass.

Holding their "prizes," they exited the gallery. Zhan Zhao studied the map along the way. "Feels like some sort of maze game."

Bai Yutang held up the compass and checked the position of the sun, it was accurate.

The two of them originally planned to continue browsing other galleries, but Zhan Zhao received a photo from Zhao Jue, the jellyfish tower had been installed, and it looked pretty stunning in the picture.

Zhan Zhao showed it to Bai Yutang enviously. Bai Yutang pulled him back towards the mall to get the car, ready to go see it in person.

......

When they arrived at Zhao Jue's villa, they found quite a few people gathered to see the jellyfish tower, and there were far too many dogs in the yard...

Zhan Zhao noticed there were now four Great Danes and was a bit puzzled, Weren't there only two?

"Those four are puppies born last year," Kalin walked past with a watering can, tending to the plants in the garden.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both marvelled at the sheer size of the Great Danes, they really took up a lot of space!

Once inside the living room, the first thing they saw was a huge column right in the centre, with several jellyfish trailing long tentacles, swimming leisurely inside.

Bai Yutang thought – It's outrageous.

Zhan Zhao also felt that while the photos had looked quite impressive, and even now it looked rather striking on its own, placing it in the middle of the living room made it seem a bit over the top.

Bai Ye stood by the table, shaking his head over and over, he would be too embarrassed to invite guests over to his house ever again...

Zhan Zhao stared at the tower for quite a while, then turned to Bai Yutang and said, "Good thing we didn't buy it!"

Bai Yutang nodded at him – Told you so!

Zhao Jue shot them a sharp look.

Bai Yutang suggested that perhaps they could keep it at home for a few days, and once they'd had enough of it, they could move it to his older brother's hotel.

Bai Ye raised both hands in agreement – That sounds like a solid plan.

Zhan Zhao also thought it would probably look better in a hotel setting.

Zhao Jue sat on the sofa, stroking the little white dog named Pupu, and grumbling that none of them had any taste.

Bai Yutang asked Bai Ye about the new car he'd bought, he wanted to have a look.

Bai Ye said he hadn't collected it yet, he would have to go another day, as they happened to come across someone who jumped off a building.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both turned to look at the pair in silence – So even though it was Big Brother's grand opening today and nothing had happened to him, the two of you had ended up encountering that instead... Has the bad luck shifted?

Zhan Zhao figured it must have had something to do with that Zhang Wei who had an affair on Xiaohong. By the sound of it, these two had been on the scene when it all happened.

He was going to question Zhao Jue in more detail, but before he could even open his mouth, his phone rang, it was Ai Hu calling.

Zhan Zhao guessed it must be the results from the criminal investigation team regarding the body recovery.

Sure enough, as soon as he answered, Ai Hu said that they had recovered two boxes filled with cement blocks from under the bridge and at the dock. One of the boxes contained the dismembered body of a woman, presumably discarded by the killer.

"Only one female corpse?" Zhan Zhao originally thought that the missing people were a couple, so the victims were likely also two people.

"So far we've only found two boxes, the search is ongoing. The victim's identity has also been confirmed, it's a woman in her fifties, named Guan Mei."

Zhan Zhao froze, phone in hand. "What's the name?"

"Guan Mei," Ai Hu glanced down at the report.

"Is she a maths teacher?" asked Zhan Zhao.

"Uh... doesn't look like it," Ai Hu flipped through the documents. "She worked at a pharmacy."

"A pharmacy?" Zhan Zhao asked. "Is there a photo? Could you send me one?"

Ai Hu quickly sent a picture over.

Zhan Zhao opened it and realised it wasn't their former maths teacher. Just to be sure, he showed it to Bai Yutang as well.

Bai Yutang shook his head, he'd never seen this person either.

"Same name and surname? What a coincidence..." Zhan Zhao couldn't shake the odd feeling in his gut. He remembers that their middle school maths teacher was also called Guan Mei.

‿︵‿︵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 14, 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 4, 2025 by Angel