S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 70

The Culinary Murderer 22 – Telephone

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In the early hours of the morning, just as you were jolted awake from a nightmare, the phone suddenly rang, and the caller ID showed an unfamiliar number... would you answer it?

Whether most people would or not was uncertain, but Bai Yutang definitely would, because at that moment, he had already reached out, taken Bai Chi's phone, and pressed the speaker button.

After the call connected... no one spoke. Only some static could be heard... drip, drip...

"Hello?"

Bai Chi was awake by now as well. He called out twice, but there was no response on the other end, just the same "drip, drip" sound.

Everyone listened closely. That restless, agitating noise seemed to be the sound of dripping water... the kind you'd hear from a tap that hadn't been turned off properly, slow, repetitive drips.

There was still no human response from the caller, only the dripping water. Judging from the ambient noise, it sounded very quiet in the surroundings as well.

Zhan Zhao went to his room to fetch his tablet. He opened the tracking software Jiang Ping had created for him, entered the phone number, and the call's location appeared on the map...

Zhan Zhao pointed to the location displayed and showed it to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang glanced at it and frowned – It's the location of S City Middle School!

Just then, a beep sounded from the phone, and the call was disconnected.

Everyone was full of questions.

First of all, was this a coincidence? If not, how had the caller timed it so precisely?

Zhan Zhao glanced around, then looked at Bai Yutang – Could our home have been bugged?

Bai Yutang shook his head – Impossible. Never mind the top-tier security system, even though we don't keep dogs, there's an adult male lion in the house!

Thinking of this, Bai Yutang suddenly turned towards the window.

The villa was surrounded by trees on all sides, but with binoculars, it would have been possible to see which room had lights on... Was someone watching them?

Bai Yutang grabbed his coat and said he would go have a look at the school.

Zhan Zhao wanted to go as well, but Bai Yutang said the situation was still unclear and told him to stay at home for now.

The twins also went to change and said they'd go with Bai Yutang.

The three of them left the house and drove towards the school.

In the villa, Bai Chi couldn't sleep any more, and Zhan Zhao was quite curious about the nightmare Bai Chi had just had, so the two of them went to the living room to have a proper chat.

Just as they reached the living room, the phone rang again.

Zhan Zhao noticed that this time it wasn't Bai Chi's phone ringing, but his own. He picked it up and glanced at the screen.

He had expected it to be another mysterious call, but the caller ID read "Long-Haired Freak".

Zhan Zhao answered, "Hello?"

Zhao Jue's voice came from the other end, "What are you doing up in the middle of the night?"

Zhan Zhao walked to the window, looking into the distance with a puzzled expression. "Where exactly is the surveillance camera installed?"

Zhao Jue asked, "What happened?"

Zhan Zhao had no choice but to explain that Bai Chi had had a nightmare, and then they'd received a nuisance call.

After listening, Zhao Jue said it didn't sound very interesting.

Zhan Zhao told the old man who loved to stay up late to go to bed early, then hung up amid Zhao Jue's grumbling and cursing.

After taking a moment to steady his breathing, Zhan Zhao returned to sit on the edge of the sofa and asked Bai Chi, who was sipping the hot tea Gongsun had made for him, "What was the nightmare about?"

......

At the police bureau, in the SWAT team building, it was Captain Xiaofei's turn on the night shift, along with Deputy Team Leader Wen Xiaorou and a few colleagues.

The office was fairly quiet, some were resting, others were watching a football match.

Just then, Wen Xiaorou's phone rang.

Wen Xiaorou was in the middle of playing a boxing game. Picking up the phone, she saw it was an unfamiliar number and didn't answer. She didn't have any friends who would call at this hour, it was most likely a scam call... No way she was picking up!

The phone rang for a while, then stopped.

A few seconds later, it started ringing again.

All the colleagues turned to look at her.

One cheeky junior even asked, "Sister Rou Rou, who is it? Your boyfriend?"

Wen Xiaorou teased back, "A boyfriend calling at this hour? More like a ghost boyfriend!"

Everyone shouted, "Sister Rou Rou is so scary!" and urged her to answer the call quickly.

Wen Xiaorou picked up the phone. "Hello?"

But no one spoke on the other end. There was only a "drip, drip..." sound, like water drops.

Wen Xiaorou frowned slightly and kept listening.

But there was nothing but the sound of dripping water, not a single voice.

At that moment, Captain Xiaofei, who had been watching the match nearby, turned to look over.

He and Wen Xiaorou exchanged a brief glance. Sensing something wasn't right, Xiaofei reached out his hand for the phone.

Wen Xiaorou handed it to him.

Xiaofei signalled for everyone to be quiet.

The office immediately fell silent.

Listening to the dripping sound on the other end of the call, a puzzled expression appeared on Xiaofei's face as well.

The sound lasted for about a minute, then the call was disconnected.

Xiaofei looked at Wen Xiaorou in puzzlement – What was that about?

Wen Xiaorou shrugged – Probably dialled the wrong number.

She put the phone to one side, and everyone went back to what they were doing.

Still, Wen Xiaorou stared at her phone, faintly sensing something wasn't quite right... Who had called?

Xiaofei also felt something was off and told her to write down the number and have the tech team check it out in the morning.

Just as Wen Xiaorou was jotting down the number, her phone rang again.

This time, everyone in the office looked over. Her junior colleague tensed up, "Sister Rou Rou, what kind of creep is harassing you?!"

Wen Xiaorou glanced at the caller ID, it was from the security room downstairs.

"Sister Rou, someone's looking for you."

Wen Xiaorou answered, still confused. "Someone looking for me at this hour? Who? My dad?"

"No, a young lady," the guard replied. "Said she's an old classmate of yours."

"Old classmate?" Wen Xiaorou looked even more baffled. "Who?"

At that moment, a woman's voice came through on the line, the guard presumably had passed the phone to her.

"Xiaorou, it's me, Fang Beibei."

Wen Xiaorou's expression must have been quite dramatic, her colleagues looked full of curiosity.

"Oh..." It took Wen Xiaorou around three seconds to compose herself before she said, "Go take a seat in the reception room, I'll come down right away."

Fang Beibei handed the phone back to the security guard. The guard asked her to place her bag through the security scanner and walk through the security gate... After ensuring she wasn't carrying anything dangerous, he took her to the reception room.

Wen Xiaorou hung up, paused for a moment, then opened a drawer and pulled out a voice recorder, slipping it into her pocket.

Xiaofei noticed her action and asked, "What's going on?"

Wen Xiaorou smiled and said, "Two possibilities."

Xiaofei waited for her to elaborate.

Wen Xiaorou picked up her jacket and put it on as she spoke. "First, someone's setting a trap for me."

"And the second?"

Wen Xiaorou winked. "I'm going to set a trap for someone else."

With that, Wen Xiaorou finished getting dressed and headed downstairs.

......

Outside the gates of S City Middle School, Bai Yutang got out of the car with the twins.

S City Middle School was quite large, divided into a main campus, a branch campus, a boarding area, and several auxiliary zones.

According to the call trace, the call had come from the main campus.

As the name suggested, this was the area where most student activities took place, classes, sports, assemblies, and so on.

At this hour, the main campus was deserted. The school gates were firmly locked, and an elderly gatekeeper was dozing inside the guardroom with a coat draped over him.

This old man had been the school's security guard for years. He was already working there when Bai Yutang was a student.

He walked over and tapped on the window of the guardroom.

The old guard stirred awake and looked up...

In fact, hardly anyone came to the school at this hour, so he was understandably puzzled.

Opening the window and peering out, the old man thought the young man in front of him looked rather familiar.

"Uncle Wang, it's Bai Yutang."

"Oh..." The security guard paused, then genuinely recognised him. "Xiao Bai!"

Now, one might wonder how a school guard, who had seen so many students every day, could recognise someone he hadn't seen in twenty years. The answer was simple – it was Bai Yutang. People that good-looking were rare to begin with, so of course the old man remembered him.

The security guard was quite pleased to see Bai Yutang, though the timing of the visit was a bit odd.

Bai Yutang took out his ID and explained that he wanted to go in.

The security guard nodded and opened the gate for him.

Behind Bai Yutang were the twins who had come along, glancing around curiously as they walked inside.

Bai Yutang checked the location on his phone following the location from the trace... The position hadn't shifted at all since earlier, which meant that the person who had made the call, or at least the phone itself, had remained within the school grounds the entire time.

"Uncle Wang, has anyone come in recently?" Bai Yutang asked.

Uncle Wang shook his head and said no, Xiao Li had just done a patrol and hadn't reported anything unusual.

Bai Yutang knew that the school security operated in pairs, one stayed at the gatehouse, while the other made rounds. The patrols didn't just cover the main campus, but also the other sections.

However, the school was enormous, and if someone wanted to sneak in through another entrance, the few guards couldn't possibly cover everything. Fortunately, there were surveillance cameras throughout the premises.

Following the GPS signal, Bai Yutang found that he was very close. He looked up and frowned... Up ahead was an area cordoned off with shipping container panels, bearing a sign that read "No Entry".

At night it looked particularly eerie, with no streetlights around.

But with his memory, Bai Yutang could roughly recall where this was... It used to be the school swimming pool.

Uncle Wang illuminated the area with a flashlight and asked, "Xiao Bai, you guys..."

The twins noticed that the beam of the flashlight was trembling slightly, so they turned to look at the uncle – What's wrong?

Bai Yutang reached out and took the flashlight from his hand. He more or less understood what was going on... This security uncle was the one who had discovered the vice principal's body in the swimming pool all those years ago, he probably had some lingering trauma associated with the place.

Bai Yutang gestured for the uncle to wait there, then took out his phone and dialled the number that had just called Bai Chi...

Sure enough, moments later, a ringtone came from behind the partition.

The twins began searching for an opening to get in, and sure enough, around the back in a concealed corner, they found a damaged panel, a hole large enough for a person to crawl through.

Bai Yutang went in first, followed by Da Ding, while Xiao Ding stayed outside with the security guard.

Once inside, Bai Yutang followed the sound and located the phone, it was lying in a trough beside the swimming pool.

The phone was just sitting there, and next to it, a tap hadn't been fully closed, dripping water slowly, drip... drip...

Bai Yutang took out an evidence bag, put on gloves, and placed the phone into the bag.

Da Ding looked around in all directions, but there was no one nearby. However, at the bottom of the dried-up swimming pool ahead, there seemed to be something, so he took a few steps forward.

As Bai Yutang was sealing the bag, the phone's screen lit up... The lock screen displayed a photo, a picture of two people together – the landlord couple who had just been found dead in the cold storage room.

Bai Yutang frowned. The landlady's phone had been smashed, and the landlord's had never been found, could this be it?

At that moment, Da Ding behind him clicked his tongue a couple of times, as if calling him over.

Bai Yutang walked over, and Da Ding pointed towards the bottom of the swimming pool.

Following the direction he indicated, Bai Yutang frowned again – The pool floor had originally been covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves, but someone had gathered them together. The dry leaves, twigs, and other debris had been arranged into the shape of an anchor.

Outside the swimming pool, Xiao Ding suddenly asked the now visibly tense security uncle, "Uncle, does the school have classes at night?"

"Huh?" The old man turned around, quickly shaking his head. "Of course not, how could there be classes at this hour..."

Xiao Ding nodded towards the distant classroom building. "Then why is the light on in that classroom?"

‿︵‿︵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 28, 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 24, 2025 by Soojin