S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 60

The Culinary Murderer 12 – Suitcase

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Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang went to ask Wen Xiaorou for gossip, but ended up being roped in by Fei Mu as extra manpower. What's more, they landed themselves with a rather troublesome "task": they had to secretly film the "collection" at Shi Yanshuo and Yu Hui's wedding.

Fei Mu didn't actually intend to use the footage as evidence, it was for reconstructing a timeline.

These artworks were all black-market contraband, but the times and locations of the transactions were more or less known. The economic crimes division had been looking into Shi Yanshuo for quite some time. How many of these illegal items he owned was crucial, it could be used to roughly establish a timeline, which would then be compared with the flow of funds in and out of his accounts, aiding the investigation.

As colleagues and as police officers, both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were happy to help.

But Yu Hui was also their old classmate, and investigating her husband on her wedding day, and secretly collecting evidence at that, left them feeling rather guilty.

To ease their conscience, the two of them forcibly dragged off Mwah Mwah, holding him hostage at the SC office for half a day to balance things out!

Back at the office, Mwah Mwah wagged his tail and went off to find Bai Chi.

Worried that Fei Mu, who had followed them to the door, might see him, he clung to the glass door and pointed at the sweet treat in Bai Chi's hand – Mwah Mwah was watching his sugar intake, no feeding allowed!

The afternoon sun was rather harsh, so Bai Yutang went over to the window to adjust the angle of the blinds. He saw that a massive advertisement screen had been mounted on the exterior of the Bai Group building in the distance, playing promotional videos for the food city and the food competition.

This time, the twins had clearly gone all out, the screen was so large that you could see it clearly from half a mile away.

"Huh?" Zhan Zhao noticed that the promotional video hadn't been changed. Fang Beibei was still featured prominently and remained a hot favourite, which piqued his curiosity. "Didn't the twins say just yesterday that they were going to replace her?"

Off to the side, Zhao Hu gossiped with Zhan Zhao. "Major reversal! Her popularity's even higher now!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both confused – A reversal?

Zhao Hu was reading gossip posts. "Fang Beibei just posted a long article on social media, with loads of photos, quite a few of them were of her and Zhang Wei back in middle school. Turns out the two of them have known each other since childhood, childhood sweethearts, been together for over ten years. Zhang Wei was even her first love. She said that it was Guan Xiaohong, the one who jumped off the building, who was the third party, and that before this whole incident, she hadn't even heard of Guan Xiaohong. Apparently, Zhang Wei's just a scumbag who sponged off women, someone dug up that he'd been dating multiple girlfriends at the same time, casting a wide net just to leech off their money. Later, once Fang Beibei became a successful entrepreneur, he started breaking up with the others one by one, preparing to marry her. But who knew Guan Xiaohong was so obsessively attached and refused to break up... and that's how things ended up like this."

"She also fired back at those claiming she used to bully classmates at school. She said it was all just smear tactics by her rivals, and challenged them to produce evidence of whom she supposedly bullied, she wasn't afraid to confront them face to face. Speaking of school bullying, Fang Beibei said that she had actually been the one who was frequently bullied as a child, she still has scars from those beatings..."

Zhao Hu tapped on a photo and showed it to the others – sure enough, it was a picture of a scar on someone's arm.

Having just listened to quite a bit of behind-the-scenes gossip, and now learning about Fang Beibei's childhood, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang didn't quite know how to react.

They knew little about the business between Fang Beibei and Zhang Wei and had no comment to make. They hadn't seen her being bullied as a child, and as for whether she had bullied others, that was indeed difficult to verify. So many years had passed, and most of it would have been verbal abuse, which, aside from the victim's memories, probably wouldn't have left any real evidence.

Zhan Zhao checked the comments. Sure enough, there had been a complete reversal in public opinion. Many who had previously criticised her were now beginning to feel sorry for her.

"This scar," Zhan Zhao enlarged the image to get a better look and found it rather serious. "What kind of thing could've caused that kind of injury...?"

As he spoke, the elevator doors opened, and Xiao Xiatian came out pushing another freezer.

Ma Han, standing at the door, looked puzzled. "Another one?"

Xiatian replied helplessly, "The salvage team pulled up another box, this one still had a skeleton inside."

"So there are two bodies now?" Zhan Zhao walked over with the phone in hand. He showed Xiatian the photo of the scar and asked, "What kind of injury does this look like to you?"

Xiatian glanced at it. "A cut or a slash, I'd say."

"It looks like it was caused by something like a knife, right?" Zhan Zhao asked. "Roughly what size?"

Xiatian looked at the phone for a while and then shook his head. "It's probably not a knife."

"Then what was it?"

Xiatian held out his own arm to show Zhan Zhao. "Look, usually, if someone is attacked with a sharp object and they're conscious, they'll instinctively raise their arms to defend themselves. Most knife wounds tend to appear on the outer side of the forearm. But this wound is on the inner arm. One situation where that might happen is during a struggle for the weapon, but in that case, you'd also expect injuries on the fingers or palms. But this hand doesn't have any such wounds. The other possibility is self-inflicted, most self-inflicted cuts tend to appear in that exact area."

"Self-inflicted..." Zhan Zhao murmured to himself.

"So it might not have been a knife," Xiatian lifted his hand to mimic the motion of grabbing a door frame. "Injuries in this position are mostly caused by scrapes, they typically happen when someone falls from a height or slips and grabs onto something to steady themselves. If there's a sharp protrusion on the wall at that spot, it can easily cause a cut. People who enjoy climbing often get hurt in that exact area."

"Oh..." Zhan Zhao felt Xiatian's analysis was reasonable and well-founded, and nodded to show he had learnt something new.

Little Xiatian looked rather sheepish, saying it was all just theoretical knowledge, to be on the safe side, they should still check with Gongsun.

With that, he pushed the freezer back to the forensics room.

Zhan Zhao handed the phone back to Zhao Hu, clasped his hands behind his back and wandered around the SCI office, seemingly deep in thought.

Not long after, Xiatian came running back and beckoned to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, saying Gongsun was looking for them.

The two of them headed to the forensics room.

Inside, three black suitcases had been placed on the three autopsy tables.

All the suitcases were open, and two of them contained dismembered remains.

Gongsun was standing in front of the third suitcase, which was also open... This one looked noticeably older than the other two, with a layer of algae stuck to the outside. Its original black had faded to a deep green.

Inside the case was a pile of white bones.

"White bones..." Bai Yutang felt something was off about the timing. The case only happened a few days ago, how could it have turned into a skeleton after a week in the sea? Did they encounter piranhas?

Gongsun was holding a skull in his hands, examining it.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both noticed that the skull seemed slightly smaller than average.

Seeing them, Gongsun motioned towards the skull in his hands. "It's a child."

Zhan Zhao was startled, and Bai Yutang frowned. "How young?"

"Around thirteen," said Gongsun. "A girl. Judging by the condition, she's been dead for at least ten years."

Something stirred unexpectedly in both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's hearts when they heard that... They asked in unison, "How did she die?"

Gongsun shook his head and said the bones had been in the sea too long. On top of that, the skeleton wasn't complete, and there was something wrong with the suitcase. 

Gongsun pointed to the bottom of the suitcase.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang leaned in for a closer look, and sure enough, beneath the bones lay a rust-covered ship's anchor.

"One corner of the suitcase was torn, some of the bones may have been washed away, but the skull got lodged near the tear, which is why the rest of the bones remained." Gongsun gently placed the skull on the autopsy table, pulled over a magnifying glass, and began examining a damaged spot on the skull.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked if the child had died from a heavy blow.

Gongsun shook his head and said not necessarily. He then called over Ma Xin and Xiatian to help lift out the anchor.

The anchor was quite heavy and had several rivets on it.

Gongsun compared the wound on the skull with the rivets. "It's also possible the injury was caused while the body was inside the suitcase, if it struck one of these."

"There's something underneath."

Once they had lifted the anchor out, Ma Xin noticed there was some silt at the bottom of the case. Mixed in with it was a blue nylon strap...

Ma Xin used tweezers to pinch the strap and lift it up. Unexpectedly, a name tag came up with it.

After rinsing the mud off, they found there was a card inside the tag holder, but it had been soaked for so long that it had faded.

Ma Xin phoned the forensics team to request technical support.

Meanwhile, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were drawn to a badge pinned to the nylon strap... They had the exact same one, white background with red lettering – S City Middle School.

Although the text on the card had vanished, they both recognised the style of the holder, it was the school card used when they were students. It granted access to the school, the cafeteria, the labs, the library, the gymnasium... every student at S City Middle School had one.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned as they stared at the skull on the table. Though they said nothing aloud, each had a creeping suspicion forming in their minds about the identity of the deceased.

Just then, the technical support from the downstairs forensic department arrived.

Ma Xin's good friend Xiao Wang came running up, carrying a case.

After examining the condition of the ID card, Xiao Wang declared – No problem at all!

She took out some reagent from her kit and soaked the faded card. About ten minutes later, patterns began to miraculously emerge on what had originally looked like a blank white card.

The contents of the card reappeared: a girl's photo, and beneath it, a name – Tan Wen.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had already been mentally prepared, but at the moment they saw the name, they were still shocked – They'd found her! The middle school classmate who had gone missing more than ten years ago!

Everyone originally believed that Tan Wen had entered a dangerous cave on her own and died in an accident. All that had been left behind in the karst cave at the time was her rain poncho. But judging by the discovery of the remains now, even if the underground water from the cave led to the sea, it couldn't have stuffed the body into a suitcase and thrown in an anchor. After all these years... the body had been found in such an "accidental" way. So it hadn't been a disappearance or accident at all, it had clearly been murder! Who would murder a middle school girl? What kind of grudge or hatred would lead someone to leave her corpse in the sea for so many years...

"That's an M-brand suitcase."

Just then, Xiao Wang, who had finished her work and was tidying up, pointed at the suitcases and remarked, "Killers these days, honestly, using suitcases that cost over a hundred thousand to pack a body."

"What?" Zhan Zhao, Bai Yutang, and Gongsun all looked curiously at Xiao Wang.

Ma Xin was also surprised. "This is that legendary M-brand suitcase?"

Xiao Wang changed into a new pair of gloves, rather ceremoniously, and said, "Let me verify whether it's genuine."

With that, she began examining the suitcase carefully, touching the material and eventually locating a tag sewn into the lining. After studying it closely, she nodded. "That's right!"

The forensics team had the most "walking encyclopaedias", each person usually had a speciality they'd undergone special training in. Xiao Wang's area of expertise was clothes and luggage. When the economic crimes division came across seized luxury goods, they'd often call on her to identify whether they were real or counterfeit at a glance.

"Is this suitcase very expensive?" Zhan Zhao thought it didn't look all that different from the ones that cost a few hundred.

"Over a hundred thousand each, made to order, entirely handcrafted. And this particular model has already been discontinued. On the second-hand market, it can sell for three to four hundred thousand."

Gongsun's face was full of question marks. "This tatty old suitcase? What exactly makes it valuable?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang also admitted they didn't really understand the world any more.

"However, expensive things have their advantages. When you're investigating a case, luxury items usually mean leads." Xiao Wang asked Ma Xin to take a photo of the label tag.

"Just like with high-end watches and jewellery, these kinds of bags have a unique serial number for theft prevention," Xiao Wang asked them to check the number, as they would be able to find out who the first buyer of the box was. As for whether it had been resold, that's another matter.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both gave her a look of existential inquiry. "Where exactly do we look it up? Is there a website or something?"

Xiao Wang rolled her eyes and pointed at Bai Yutang – second-generation rich; then at Gongsun – married to a wealthy husband; then at Zhan Zhao – rich in general.

"Don't any of you ever go shopping on luxury streets?"

Now all three of them looked even more baffled. "There's a street like that in S City?"

"It's just down the pedestrian street next door, loads of luxury brands have boutiques there, M-brand luggage included. Just go into the shop and ask the staff to check the number with headquarters." With that, Xiao Wang shook her head and walked off carrying the case.

Ma Xin walked her out, and the two sisters grumbled about how this bunch of people seriously lacked any sense of enjoyment in life.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at Gongsun – Sense of enjoyment in life?

Gongsun just spread his hands.

"They're consecutive serial numbers."

At that moment, Xiatian, who had been looking at the photos Ma Xin had just taken, looked up and said to the three of them, "All three suitcases have consecutive serial numbers."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a glance.

Gongsun took the camera, scrolled through the photos, and frowned. "They really are consecutive..."

Zhan Zhao looked over at the three suitcases on the autopsy table. "There's over a decade between the two body-dumping cases... and the suitcases have consecutive numbers?"

‿︵‿︵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 18, 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 8, 2025 by Soojin