S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 71

The Culinary Murderer 23 – The Sound of Water Drops

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Wen Xiaorou arrived at the reception room and found that it really was Fang Beibei who had come to see her.

Fang Beibei was sitting on one of the chairs, holding her phone. Beside her was a suitcase, with a travel bag placed on top, it looked like she was about to set off on a long trip.

As soon as she saw Wen Xiaorou walk in, Fang Beibei quickly stood up. "Xiaorou."

Wen Xiaorou nodded slightly and tried to recall whether the two of them had ever had any sort of friendship. As far as she could remember, there hadn't been any at all.

Did Wen Xiaorou know that back when they were in school, Fang Beibei used to talk about her behind her back? Of course she did. Even if Zhan Zhao hadn't told her, she still would have known.

Although Xiaorou had trained in combat with her father since she was little and had quite a boyish character, her mother was a delicate and slightly pampered beauty, not one for sports, but obsessed with dramas.

When Xiaorou was still very young, her relatives often tried to persuade her mother to rein her in, "A girl should act like a girl. If this goes on, she won't fit in. Look, my daughter doesn't even want to play with her."

Xiaorou's mother had replied, "Your daughter doesn't want to play with mine, why should I rein mine in? Why does she have to play with your daughter? And anyway, who decided what a girl should be like? You? Who are you? God? Nuwa?"

So, in Wen Xiaorou's eyes, people like Fang Beibei were no different from that child who hadn't wanted to play with her when they were young. She didn't care what Fang Beibei thought or said, because there was never any need to get along in the first place.

Obviously, back in school, they had had no interaction; after graduation, they'd never seen each other again, never kept in touch... If it hadn't been for this recent case, Wen Xiaorou would've almost forgotten she even existed. And yet here Fang Beibei was, showing up in the middle of the night with luggage in tow, coming to her workplace to find her... Something so out of the ordinary had to mean trouble.

Fang Beibei, upon seeing Wen Xiaorou, showed no sign of awkwardness. She stood up with a bright smile, looking so delighted at the sight of an old classmate that if someone unfamiliar with the two had walked in, they might have mistaken them for best friends from school.

But Wen Xiaorou didn't play along. She gave her a once-over and asked, "How did you know I was on night duty today?"

Fang Beibei was momentarily caught off guard. She probably hadn't expected that to be Xiaorou's first question, but she managed to answer without much difficulty.

"I'm in that old classmates' group chat, aren't I? I actually heard ages ago that you were now a SWAT team captain. I asked an old classmate how I could find you..."

Wen Xiaorou didn't press her further after hearing that, though the explanation clearly had plenty of holes.

"Sit down," Wen Xiaorou motioned for Fang Beibei to take a seat. She went over to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of drink for her, and asked, "What do you want from me?"

Fang Beibei took the drink she handed over, drew a deep breath, and said, "Can I stay at your place for the next few days?"

The moment Fang Beibei spoke, Wen Xiaorou was completely thrown off.

After a long pause, Xiaorou asked, "Stay at my place?"

Fang Beibei nodded.

Wen Xiaorou was utterly baffled, her expression was one big question mark.

Fang Beibei looked rather pitiful and said she couldn't think of any other way, her life might be in danger.

Wen Xiaorou frowned slightly and asked, "What do you mean, your life is in danger? Someone's trying to kill you?"

Fang Beibei nodded.

"Then shouldn't you call the police?" Wen Xiaorou gestured towards the police station next door.

Fang Beibei shook her head. "The one trying to kill me isn't human!"

Wen Xiaorou thought for a moment, then pointed the other way.

Fang Beibei looked confused.

Wen Xiaorou said, "That way, there's a psychiatric hospital..."

Fang Beibei was so angry that she laughed. "You heard about Zhang Wei, right?"

Wen Xiaorou nodded.

"Zhang Wei's death wasn't an accident at all!" Fang Beibei whispered.

Wen Xiaorou didn't really understand why she was whispering, there were only the two of them here...

"He was killed by an evil spirit!" When Fang Beibei said this, her voice trembled.

Wen Xiaorou stared at her for a moment, then asked seriously, "Male ghost or female?"

......

Bai Yutang and Da Ding stood beside the swimming pool, staring at an anchor-shaped pattern at the bottom that was made from a mess of garbage and dead leaves.

Bai Yutang took out his phone and took a couple of photos. Judging by the shape, this anchor looked very similar to the tattoo on the back of the dead landlord's head. And now they'd also found the landlord's phone... Could it have been the same person who killed the landlord and his wife?

He was about to open the phone and have a look, but it was locked with a password, so it had to be handed over to the tech team.

After putting the phone away, Bai Yutang was drawn to a small glimmer of light in the distance. He looked up, frowning – Why is there a classroom light on in that pitch-black school building?

Climbing out through a hole in the corrugated metal shed, Bai Yutang saw that Xiao Ding and Uncle Wang were both staring towards the distant school building.

Old Wang seemed visibly shaken, whether from nervousness or fear, even his hands were trembling uncontrollably.

Xiao Ding had been watching him for a while and thought it was a bit much... Hadn't he been a security guard for decades? How could he be so easily frightened?

"There's someone in that classroom at this hour?" Bai Yutang asked as he came over.

Old Wang shook his head repeatedly and said there shouldn't be, maybe someone had just forgotten to turn the light off at the end of the day...

Bai Yutang asked, "Didn't you just say a security guard did a patrol earlier? If the lights had been left on, he would've noticed and switched them off, right?"

"Er..." Old Wang seemed to think that made sense too. He looked up towards the teaching building.

"Let's go have a look," Bai Yutang led the twins towards the building.

Old Wang trailed behind, glancing up at that lit classroom from time to time.

When they reached the entrance to the teaching building, they found the main doors locked.

Old Wang took out a key to open the door.

However, because his hands were shaking, he dropped the key twice.

Bai Yutang picked up the key and unlocked the door, walking straight in.

The classroom with the light on was on the third floor. They quickly made their way up the stairs, then headed towards the lit room, and they looked inside.

There was a clatter, Old Wang had dropped his flashlight.

The twins turned to look at him, only to see his face frozen in terror, eyes fixed straight ahead at the person sitting in the middle of the classroom.

That's right, in a classroom that should have been empty at this hour of the night, there was actually someone sitting there.

It was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman, because the person was wearing a bright yellow rain poncho and was slumped over the desk.

Despite the noise from Old Wang's dropped flashlight, the person didn't move at all.

Bai Yutang opened the door, stepped into the classroom and walked over to the figure... He glanced down, then his face took on a slightly exasperated expression.

The twins and Old Wang also stepped inside.

Only then did they realise there was no one there at all, someone had played a prank, piling up books on the desk and draping a rain poncho over them to make it look like someone was sitting there.

Bai Yutang frowned. When had this been set up? Hadn't the security guard just patrolled...

Clearly, Old Wang was just as puzzled. He took out his phone to call the other guard.

But the call rang for a long time without anyone answering.

Just then, Xiao Ding, who had stepped out into the corridor, suddenly turned back and pointed at his ear towards Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang stepped out of the classroom and stood in the corridor... Inside the deathly silent building, there seemed to be a phone ringing.

Bai Yutang paused for a moment to get his bearings, then realised the sound was coming from the far end of the corridor...

Everyone looked up and stared in that direction.

Bai Yutang had studied here when he was younger, but had never been here in the middle of the night.

By day, a school might be the liveliest place in the world, but at this silent hour, the long corridor stretched ahead like a pitch-black tunnel.

......

"A tunnel?"

Zhan Zhao, while eating ice cream, was giving psychological counselling to Bai Chi, who was lying on the sofa with his head resting on Lisbon and his feet propped up on Zhao Zhen's legs, trying to "relax" as much as possible.

Gongsun and Bai Jintang were probably exhausted and had gone to bed. On the sofa, it was just the three of them, along with a pile of big and small cats.

Bai Chi described his dream.

To put it simply, he'd found himself walking inside a tunnel that felt like a cave, surrounded by darkness.

Bai Chi was most afraid of scenarios where he was alone in a dark tunnel, so this nightmare had really taken its toll on him.

He dreamt he was running desperately through the tunnel. Then one of his shoes came off, and he stepped into a muddy patch. Most terrifying of all, he could hear footsteps behind him, as if something was chasing him.

Although he kept running, he had the constant feeling that whatever it was in the darkness was getting closer and closer. And he was terribly afraid of it...

Then, all of a sudden, he crashed into a wall. A hand reached out from the side and grabbed his hand... He turned his head and saw Zhao Zhen, and immediately stopped being afraid... Then he woke up...

When Zhao Zhen heard that he was the one who'd pulled Bai Chi out of the darkness, a smile appeared on his face, and he looked rather pleased.

Zhan Zhao listened and thought it was rather abrupt. To suddenly have that kind of dream... Although tunnels, running, and being chased were all common nightmare elements, \Bai Chi had never seemed to have this type of dream before.

"Could it be related to that horror film we watched the other day?" Zhao Zhen asked.

Bai Chi thought about it and felt that it was possible...

"Did you have any nightmares the night we watched it?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Bai Chi shook his head. In fact, he thought it wasn't too bad. Although some parts had been quite scary at the time, he'd more or less forgotten them afterwards. After all, he'd watched loads of horror films with Gongsun and had already developed some 'experience'. Besides, he was an adult now, he wouldn't let his imagination run wild like when he was a kid.

"Have you always been afraid of tunnels since you were little?" Zhan Zhao felt it was best to look for the root cause.

Bai Chi nodded.

"Have you ever had a similar experience?"

Bai Chi shook his head with great certainty and said that he hadn't.

Zhan Zhao also found it puzzling. With Bai Chi's intelligence and extraordinary memory, not only would he remember anything he'd actually experienced, but even the tiniest details of daily life would stick in his mind.

So what exactly had triggered this sense of fear?

Perhaps it wasn't a direct experience, but some kind of indirect one?

Could it be something he'd seen or heard as a child? But in theory, he should have remembered that too...

"What about the dripping sound on the phone just now?" Zhan Zhao tried to find another breakthrough.

Xiao Bai Chi thought for a moment. "Hmm..."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Zhen both looked at him – Have you remembered something?

"I hate the sound," Bai Chi answered, "because if the tap isn't turned off properly, it becomes really irritating."

Zhao Zhen reached out and patted Bai Chi on the head.

Zhan Zhao could understand – People with high intelligence often had obsessive tendencies, and Bai Chi did have a slight case of OCD. Certain things that broke patterns, especially sounds, would make him agitated. For example, if a single sound broke the rhythm of a uniform sequence, whether faster or slower, it would make him extremely uncomfortable.

"There's also a kind of familiar feeling," Xiao Bai Chi suddenly muttered to himself.

"A familiar feeling?" Zhan Zhao and Zhao Zhen both stared at him.

"I thought of something that doesn't seem to be related," Bai Chi was uncertain.

Zhan Zhao told him to say whatever came to mind.

"I thought of the experience of learning to swim when I was little," Bai Chi said, recalling, "I remember I was taking swimming lessons at a public pool when I was a child, and... aren't there always rows of shower taps by the pool?"

Zhan Zhao glanced at Zhao Zhen – Is that right? I avoid water, so I'm not familiar with swimming pools.

Zhao Zhen sat there thinking for a moment – There's a pool at home, but I've never been to a public swimming pool.

The two of them took out their phones to look up pictures of swimming pools, and discovered that there really were shower taps near the pool.

"I remember I was learning to swim in summer, and the weather was really hot... and I didn't like swimming, so I was already a bit irritable," Bai Chi said. "By the pool, there happened to be a broken tap, or maybe someone just hadn't turned it off properly. Anyway, it was going drip drip drip... constantly dripping, and it made me really, really annoyed..."

......

Bai Yutang, the twins, Old Wang, and the security guard followed the sound of the phone ringing to the end of the corridor.

The ringing grew clearer, it was probably coming from inside the bathroom.

Everyone entered the bathroom. Apart from the ringing, they also heard the sound of water dripping...

Bai Yutang led the twins inside. Old Wang stood at the door of the bathroom with a flashlight, peering in. Just as he was wondering why Xiao Li's phone had been left in the bathroom, suddenly... he felt as if something had landed on his shoulder.

Old Wang turned his head and saw a hand pressing down on his shoulder...

‿︵‿︵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