S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 73

The Culinary Murderer 25 – Strange Purpose

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Bai Yutang and the twins followed the two security guards to the monitoring room.

There was no duty officer stationed in the school's monitoring room, it was just a machine room, since the teaching buildings were locked at night, making them relatively secure.

The machine room was fully automated, controlled by two main servers. The cameras were motion-activated, meaning they only started recording when something moved.

As a result, the number of video files recorded each night was usually the same, recordings triggered by patrolling security guards. At other times, the system remained on standby.

Xiao Li opened the footage from that night and counted the files. He found there was indeed one extra recording, taken during the brief window after he and Old Wang had finished their patrol but before they entered the teaching building.

Bai Yutang also saw the video timestamp. It suggested that in the short gap after Xiao Li had finished his patrol and before they'd entered the building, someone else had gone inside.

Bai Yutang asked Old Wang, "How many entrances does the teaching building have?"

Old Wang said there were three, the front, the back, and an emergency exit. All three are left open during the day and locked after school once it's confirmed no one's inside. But lots of people have keys, security, the cleaning ladies who come in the morning, teachers...

Bai Yutang didn't respond. What he was really focusing on was the timing... Is it a coincidence?

Rather than overthink it, Bai Yutang asked them to play that particular video clip.

Xiao Li clicked on the video.

Because it was night-vision surveillance, the image was fairly clear but still had a slightly eerie quality. The footage had suddenly begun recording, yet no one appeared onscreen.

After a short while, a bright light appeared on the screen, and the classroom lights turned on.

Bai Yutang and the twins all found it odd – No one had passed through the camera's field of view, so how had the recording started, and how had the lights come on?

After a while, the screen went dark again.

When it lit up once more, it was at the moment they themselves had run into frame.

Bai Yutang glanced at the twins.

The twins, meanwhile, had already imagined half a dozen horror films they'd seen and found the whole thing rather thrilling!

Bai Yutang had no answers either and turned to look at Old Wang and Xiao Li. The two of them had had enough frights for one night and were clearly spooked, something about this whole situation just didn't sit right...

He asked about the surveillance footage outside the teaching building, but both men explained that the external public area cameras could only be viewed at the police station.

They first copied the footage, as Bai Yutang intended to have Jiang Ping analyse it the next day.

After leaving the surveillance room, the group headed out together.

Bai Yutang suddenly asked Old Wang, "Uncle Wang, do you still remember Tan Wen's case?"

Old Wang nodded and sighed helplessly, "How could I forget something like that?"

Xiao Li asked curiously, "Was that the girl who went missing?"

Old Wang nodded.

"Do you know where her parents are now?" Bai Yutang inquired.

Old Wang paused for a moment, rubbed his chin and said, "It seems her mom and dad moved away with her younger brother, they don't live here any more. It's a bit strange, really..."

"Strange?" Bai Yutang asked Old Wang what he found strange about it.

Old Wang sighed and said, "Tan Wen might have disappeared, but her body was never found, right?"

Bai Yutang nodded. Naturally, he wasn't about to mention to anyone outside the investigation that remains suspected to be hers had already been found.

"If it were my daughter who'd gone missing, I'd stay right where we lived. I wouldn't move, even if it killed me... After all, there's no body, who knows if she might come back one day? And if she did, what if she couldn't find her way home?" Old Wang sounded somewhat indignant. Shaking his head, he continued, "After it all happened, her parents closed their shop and started looking for her all over the place, but when it came to where she liked to hang out, what she wore, what she liked to eat, her parents couldn't say a word, it was all her classmates who gave us the info. I searched with them back then, but it didn't seem like they cared about their daughter at all! Her younger brother was even worse, his sister vanished and he didn't even show up. Apparently he was still young at the time and had been handed off to some relatives... Ai. I heard the school paid out quite a bit of compensation later on. The whole family just took the money and left, never looked for Tan Wen again."

Xiao Li tutted and shook his head. "Was it a case of favouring boys over girls?"

Old Wang curled his lip. "Who knows."

They chatted as they walked, eventually exiting the school grounds.

Old Wang and Xiao Li returned to their duties, while Bai Yutang and the twins got in the car to head home.

As Bai Yutang drove, the twins rolled down the windows and stared back at the pitch-black teaching building.

Then Bai Yutang asked, "What do you two think?"

Sitting in the back seat, Xiao Ding leaned over the back of the seat and grinned. "That old security guard, he just gave you a lead."

Bai Yutang raised an eyebrow slightly. "What lead?"

Sitting in the front passenger seat, Da Ding turned around and exchanged a knowing smile with his younger brother. "Mhmm, after that girl went missing back then, her younger brother also vanished. And then... there might be something off about her parents."

Bai Yutang didn't respond, but it was clear he agreed with the twins.

Old Wang's few comments, whether intentional or not, seemed to have revealed quite a few leads.

First of all, Tan Wen had gone missing. Her parents shut their shop to search for her, yet seemed strangely unfamiliar with their daughter. That was clearly contradictory. If they were unfamiliar with her and didn't care, why would they give up their livelihood to look for her nonstop? And according to the rumours Wen Xiaorou had previously dug up, her parents had never given up on searching for Tan Wen. Her father's health had even deteriorated, and it was because of his treatment that they'd eventually moved away. But would parents like that truly not know their daughter's preferences? Could they really not even say what she had been wearing? Also, why specifically mention the younger brother? He was still young, and being sent to live with relatives after his sister went missing wasn't exactly unusual. But if the siblings had been close, why hadn't anyone asked the brother whether he'd noticed anything odd about his sister? What kind of search had they really carried out back then? The case had caused quite a stir at the time, there was no way the police and school wouldn't have taken it seriously... Yet so many things didn't add up. What was really going on?

What Bai Yutang found most concerning, though, was also something Old Wang had said, Tan Wen's parents had moved away.

Even if they truly had to move, shouldn't they at least have left some form of contact? What if the police made progress on the case? How could they just vanish?

Driving the car, Bai Yutang felt a little annoyed. Was he overthinking things because of his professional instincts? He couldn't shake the feeling that those two security guards were strange.

With a head full of questions, Bai Yutang drove home.

As soon as he entered, he saw Zhan Zhao asleep in a pile of cats on the living room sofa, while Bai Chi and Zhao Zhen were leaning against Lisbon, fast asleep on another sofa.

The twins shook their heads and headed upstairs to bed.

Bai Yutang picked Zhan Zhao up from the pile of cats and carried him upstairs to their room.

Lisbon lay sprawled on the sofa and sighed, Is no one going to take care of the two draped over me?!

......

Everyone grabbed some rest while they could. The next morning, they were awoken by the sound of the alarm clock.

Zhao Zhen and Bai Chi had both ended up with stiff necks. They sat on the sofa, rubbing their necks in a daze.

Bai Yutang was the first to come downstairs. He tossed a USB drive to Zhao Zhen and asked if he could spot any flaws in it.

Zhao Zhen turned the USB over in his hands, examining it from all angles, then said there were no flaws.

Bai Chi took the USB from him helplessly and played the video on his laptop.

As Bai Yutang portioned out cat food for the big cats and the kittens, he recounted what had happened at the school the previous night.

When Bai Chi and Zhao Zhen watched the video again, they both felt that the atmosphere seemed a little different.

Bai Yutang went to the door to fetch the freshly delivered beef and brought it in to prepare Lisbon's breakfast.

But Lisbon didn't seem to have much of an appetite, lying at the edge of the sofa, yawning.

Bai Yutang cupped its big head and looked it over. "What's wrong? Didn't sleep well?"

Lisbon yawned again with its head on its big paws, the king of beasts who had spent the whole night as a cushion was now seriously sleep-deprived.

Gongsun and Big Brother Bai had also woken up, while the twins were still sleeping.

Bai Jintang came downstairs, made himself a cup of coffee, and switched on the television to watch the news.

Gongsun asked Bai Yutang about last night's developments over breakfast.

Bai Yutang had no choice but to explain it all again.

As he was speaking, Zhan Zhao came down yawning, picked up his phone, and played the audio clip Wen Xiaorou had sent him the night before.

Upon hearing the recording, both Bai Yutang and Gongsun frowned.

Gongsun was the first to raise a question. "If Tan Wen died accidentally, then whose remains are in that suitcase?"

"And why did Fang Beibei go to Wen Xiaorou?" Bai Yutang couldn't figure it out either. "Whether or not there really was a ghost after her, if she thought she was in danger, shouldn't she have looked for us at SCI?"

"She said she wanted to stay at Wen Xiaorou's place for the next few days," Zhan Zhao found her request rather odd. "If there really is danger, what's the point of hiding out at Wen Xiaorou's house for a few days? Does she think Wen Xiaorou can catch ghosts?"

"Heh."

At that moment, Bai Jintang, sitting on the sofa watching the news, suddenly laughed. "Didn't she hire a bunch of bodyguards? Of course bodyguards can't catch ghosts, why not let her stay at a temple instead?"

Zhan Zhao noticed that Bai Jintang seemed rather opinionated about her and asked, "Brother, what do you think she's up to?"

Bai Jintang shook his head. "She's definitely up to no good."

"What makes you say that?" Bai Yutang sat down beside Bai Jintang and shared a piece of bread with Zhan Zhao.

Bai Jintang put down the remote. "It's not that I have a prejudice against her, it's just that I've seen plenty of people like her in business. Don't listen to what she says, look at what she actually does."

Zhan Zhao was chatting with Wen Xiaorou on WeChat and helped summarise. "Last night, Fang Beibei showed up with a suitcase and a luggage bag, saying she wanted to stay at Wen Xiaorou's place for a few days. After that, the two parted on bad terms."

Big Brother Bai thought for a moment and asked, "Could she be trying to hide something at Wen Xiaorou's house?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a glance – That was a possibility they hadn't considered.

"Or, she's trying to give the impression that she handed something over to Wen Xiaorou?" Big Brother Bai said. "Otherwise, why would she just drag a suitcase over to find someone? Couldn't she have called first? Tell your old classmate to be careful, I've had a few dealings with Fang Beibei, that woman's not simple, she's the type who'd push someone down the stairs to save herself. Even if she dies, she'd find someone to take the fall for her. She's just that shameless."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang suddenly felt nervous. Zhan Zhao quickly typed out Big Brother Bai's exact words and sent them to Wen Xiaorou.

After a while, Wen Xiaorou replied with the "Evil spirits begone" emoji...

......

What had seemed like a joke at first took a serious turn. Just as they arrived at the office and were about to start the meeting, "something" happened.

Jiang Ping showed everyone a clip circulating online that morning. It was an interview with Fang Beibei, who claimed to be Wen Xiaorou's best friend from school and now a captain in the SWAT team.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths dropped wide open, thinking, How could she say something like that out loud?

Meanwhile, at the SWAT team, the junior brother showed Wen Xiaorou the news while she was preparing to finish work and catch up on sleep. "Sister Rou Rou, are they talking about you?"

Wen Xiaorou glanced over and her mouth dropped open as well.

Xiaofei, standing nearby, frowned and asked her, "What are you going to do? Should we get public relations to issue a clarification?"

Wen Xiaorou blinked and asked, "How do you clarify? Say I didn't, I'm not, don't listen to her nonsense?"

"Then why don't you ask Bao Sir or Lu Fang how they handle situations like this? Or ask Zhan Zhao?" Xiaofei also thought it was a bit complicated.

Wen Xiaorou thought for a moment and then asked her junior brother, "What about the banner we used at the last sports meet?"

Her junior brother and Xiaofei looked at her, puzzled – What are you planning?

Wen Xiaorou pointed towards the SWAT team's entrance. "Let's hang a banner saying I'm not close to her!"

‿︵‿︵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 30, 2025 by Angel

Edited: August 24, 2025 by Soojin