S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 68

The Culinary Murderer 20 – Unknown Source

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The meat factory owner had suffered a calamity he hadn't brought upon himself, but fortunately the police were rather decent, they merely told the public that two fugitives had run inside without mentioning anything more.

The fake landlord couple were already dead. On their way over, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had considered countless possibilities, yet neither had imagined it would end up like this. That said, this case did have one "benefit".

And it was that miraculously, the suitcases matched... This time, Bao Sir couldn't possibly accuse SCI of snatching someone else's case, right?!

With that "confidence" in hand, the two quickened their pace.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han had followed the two back. As they walked, Hu Zi counted on his fingers, "One suitcase costs over two hundred thousand yuan, five suitcases make over a million... They used over a million to dump a body? And if this ends up online, that suitcase will go from a luxury item to a red-white-blue plastic bag in no time."

Ma Han even asked him, "Red-white-blue plastic bag?"

"A body-dumping bag!" Hu Zi said with a sinister grin. "This suitcase will end up as a running joke, two-hundred-thousand-dollar body disposal box."

Hu Zi always liked cracking grim jokes and was merrily chatting away with Ma Han behind.

However, walking ahead, Zhan Zhao heard their conversation and found himself faintly concerned.

"Why would someone use that kind of suitcase to dump a body?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang had never dumped a body himself, so he had no experience in that area, but he had thrown away garbage. Some large bits of garbage, especially things like glass, had to be put into a box to dispose of... so what kind of box would one use? Naturally, one that wasn't needed.

And when tossing out packaging boxes, people would always tear off or scribble over any information with their name or address, because letting strangers see your delivery details was unsafe.

If people were that cautious even when throwing out garbage, would someone dumping a body really use an expensive suitcase, one whose serial number could even be traced back to the buyer?

Bai Yutang thought for a moment, and there were only two possibilities for something like this to happen.

First, the person dumping the body had no idea, and to them, the suitcase was no different from a red-white-blue plastic bag. Second, the person knew exactly what they were doing, they used it on purpose, just so the police would follow that lead.

"Is it possible it's both at once?" After listening to Bai Yutang's analysis, Zhan Zhao suddenly became thoughtful. "Have Fei Mu and the others still not found the channel through which Shi Yanshuo launders money?"

Bai Yutang nodded, thought for a moment, and asked, "That M brand, could it belong to his family?"

Zhan Zhao considered it. "Set up a whole workshop overseas churning out cheap suitcases, then import them and use his own money to drive up the brand's value, he ends up laundering money while also creating a luxury label. Not only that, he could run a second-hand luggage business, then use his own money to buy the second-hand suitcases and even sell them on as third-hand, fourth-hand, and so on. The only problem with doing it this way is that a large number of suitcases would need to be stockpiled and destroyed. So in the eyes of the person doing the destruction, they're just about the same as red-white-blue plastic bags. If they happened to need something to store things at home, they'd just take a few and use them."

Bai Yutang thought it over and found it reasonable.

As they spoke, they had already arrived at the landlord's door. Bai Yutang then asked, "Could the landlord couple have been one part of the fence operation?"

Zhan Zhao felt that it was possible. "They might have been involved in one of the steps. Didn't the landlord have an anchor tattoo on the back of his head? Shi Yanshuo was obsessed with diving and going out to sea..."

At that point, Bai Yutang suddenly asked, "Treasure hunting?"

"Treasure hunting?" That was the first time Zhan Zhao had heard of that method of laundering money.

"I heard Uncle Ye mention it once, didn't he live on a South American island for a while? Back then, he was tracking a batch of stolen cultural relics and discovered a whole money laundering chain that used treasure hunting as a cover." Bai Yutang explained to Zhan Zhao. "First, a bunch of artworks or artefacts would be purchased or stolen through illegal channels. Then, they'd fabricate a story about a shipwreck filled with treasures sinking in a certain sea area, and promote it heavily. After that, they'd form a so-called treasure-hunting team and pretend to have discovered it... On the high seas, whoever finds it keeps it, so it becomes a family heirloom. Later, they could even boast to their grandchildren that this was a treasure granddad found in the sea, not something stolen, smuggled, or even taken through murder."

Zhan Zhao found it plausible as well. No wonder so many artworks of unknown origin were being kept openly at home... and all of them were sculptures and jars and such that wouldn't be damaged by soaking in water.

"So far, everything points to economic crimes. What about the murders?" Bai Yutang found it puzzling. "Logically speaking, these suitcases might really not be worth much, but to Shi Yanshuo, they were clearly important. Using them to hold dismembered corpses, wouldn't that just bring endless trouble?"

Zhan Zhao sent the photos of the two suitcases he had just taken at the slaughterhouse to Bao Sir.

About a minute later, Bao Sir replied, "I'll have the criminal investigation team hand the case over to you in a bit."

Zhan Zhao gave Bai Yutang a V sign. His hand hadn't even dropped yet when Bao Sir sent another message: "Coordinate the investigation with the economic crimes division."

Zhan Zhao thought that was fine too and showed the texts to Bai Yutang.

After reading them, it wasn't clear whether Bai Yutang was pleased or displeased; instead, he glanced around.

Zhan Zhao asked him what was wrong.

Bai Yutang said, "I've got a feeling."

"What sort of feeling?" Zhan Zhao also looked around.

"It's as if someone really wants us to investigate this case," Bai Yutang said. "Clearly these matters aren't related, yet as we investigate, the clues just keep lining up."

Zhan Zhao gave it some thought. "There is a bit of that, but... sometimes a feeling is just a coincidence. Like earlier today, when Uncle Ye and the others went to pick up the car and happened to come across a jumper, the possibility that that was deliberately orchestrated isn't very big, right?"

Bai Yutang thought that was fair. Perhaps it was because this case involved some old classmates, so he was overthinking things.

Afterwards, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang brought Zhao Hu and Ma Han with them to investigate the small building.

They entered the landlord couple's apartment and found that the furnishings were rather sparse, which felt a bit odd. Logically, since the landlord couple lived reclusively, they ought to be home most of the time, but it was usually easy to tell whether a place was frequently occupied or not... just look at the wear on the furniture. And this place... didn't feel like it was often lived in.

"Maybe the landlords keep the same schedule as Zhu Yi during the day, just as intense," Zhan Zhao said as he touched his nose, sniffed his sleeve, and then leaned over to sniff Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang lifted his arm and smelled his own clothes, giving Zhan Zhao a puzzled look – What is it? Is there a smell?

Zhan Zhao frowned. "Seafood..."

Bai Yutang sniffed himself again. Surely not... had he eaten too much seafood lately?

But he didn't seem to smell of it.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu also took a sniff.

At that moment, a young woman from the forensics team walked past behind them, pointed at the sofa and said, "Someone must've spilt the soup while eating seafood noodles here."

"The sofa?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both walked over to have a look, and sure enough, there was a circular stain on the seat cushion.

"Why wouldn't they clean it? Just left it there like that?" Zhan Zhao found it baffling. If someone spilt instant noodles on the sofa at home, wouldn't they take the cover off and wash it? If it were someone as particular as Xiao Bai, the whole sofa would've been dismantled and scrubbed clean.

"Have you found anything related to the Instant Noodle Alien?" The mention of instant noodles reminded Zhan Zhao.

At that moment, Zhao Hu leaned in and sniffed near the sofa, saying, "Could this be the Instant Noodle Alien's signature seafood noodles?"

Several members of the forensics team nodded – It's exactly that smell!

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were quite curious and asked Zhao Hu, "You can tell just from the smell? Don't all instant noodles smell pretty much the same...?"

Everyone silently stared at the two of them – Of course not!

"The Instant Noodle Alien's signature seafood noodles have a very distinctive aroma, very fragrant but not at all fishy." Zhao Hu even recommended that Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang give them a try. Qi Le and the others were crazy about them.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were genuinely interested and asked, "Are there any of those noodles in the house?"

The forensics team had already searched and confirmed there weren't any, not even a single packet of instant noodles.

"What about the Instant Noodle Alien headgear...?" Zhan Zhao continued.

The forensics team all shook their heads, saying it wasn't available anywhere now, and asked Zhan Zhao what colour the headgear was.

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment and said the octopus was purple...

"Wow!" Everyone grew excited. "The purple one is super hard to get!"

"There are a lot of colours?"

"More than just colours! There are loads with different accessories too. The purple one and the mushroom-on-the-head version are the rarest, you can't even be sure of getting one from a scalper! They go for tens of thousands on the black market!"

Zhan Zhao found it all rather bewildering. "Then... how do people get their hands on one? There must be some method, right? Is it one of those flash-sale, fastest-fingers-win deals, or is it auctioned off to the highest bidder?"

"By playing games or collecting cards!" There happened to be a fan girl of Xu Lie in the forensics department, who patiently explained to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang how to win a cushion cover.

"If you play the game, you get points based on your performance. The higher the level you clear, the more points you earn. You can also complete tasks to earn more points. Once you've collected enough points, you can exchange them for the headgear. Or you can collect cards from eating the noodles, each pack contains one card, and if you collect seven different ones, you can exchange them for a headgear. Different combinations of cards get you different versions. Some people have been eating them for months and still haven't found a rare card. You can find some of the basic headgear in the online store, but the rare ones can only be obtained through game points or noodle card exchanges."

After hearing all that, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang thought they could rule out the instant noodle cards... The landlord didn't even have a single pack of noodles in the house, how many boxes would someone have to eat to collect enough for a headgear?!

As for playing the games... that seemed even less likely. Bai Yutang thought they'd better wait and see what data could be recovered from the landlord auntie's phone.

But several members of the forensics team were already shaking their heads – It probably wasn't either of them.

"What makes you say that?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were curious.

"There's no Wi-Fi in the house," the forensics team shook their heads. "Playing games without WiFi, do you really think you can earn enough points to exchange for prizes just by using mobile data? What are they, loaded?"

"This place has no internet at all?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled too.

The forensics members all nodded, pointing towards Zhu Yi's room. "They ran a separate internet cable. There's a signal source and it's password-protected."

"Then where did the Instant Noodle Alien headgear the landlord was wearing come from?" Zhao Hu couldn't figure it out.

"Could it have been left here by someone else?" Bai Yutang reached out and pointed at the stain on the sofa. "It's possible the noodles were deliberately spilt here too."

"Deliberately spilt?" Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang.

"Because the stain is very round and intact," Bai Yutang explained. "Instant noodles are scalding hot, people usually hold the bowl while eating, right? If they got spilt by accident, they'd likely land all over the person eating, there wouldn't just be a neat round patch on the sofa."

"Could someone have wiped it with a damp cloth?" The forensics team had actually spent quite some time discussing how the stain got there.

But Bai Yutang shook his head firmly – No, you can't wipe it like that. If you try to clean cotton fabric, it starts to fuzz, and the water and soup stains would separate into layers!

Everyone silently stared at Captain Bai – Clearly speaking from the experience of a clean freak.

Bai Yutang, on the other hand, looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao looked up at the ceiling. He usually loved to curl up on the sofa, reading or typing, and frequently drank soup or broth while sitting there. To be fair, he'd knocked things over quite a lot himself...

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Angel: Hey everyone! I've decided to take next week off, as I'm flying home with just my laptop and I felt that it was a good time to take a rest. I'll see you guys again on September 1st!

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

Translated: May 27, 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 22, 2025 by Soojin