S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 84

The Culinary Murderer 36 – Unexpected

---

Zhan Zhao found a photo of Wang Yong when he was a police officer to show to the café auntie.

The auntie nodded and confirmed that he was indeed the officer who had come by.

"Did he also say he was a police officer when he came asking questions later?"

The auntie nodded again. "That's right..."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang found it increasingly odd. Wang Yong left the force long ago and had been working for Shi Yanshuo in recent years. Why was he still investigating a case that had already been closed?

"What exactly did he ask about?" Bai Yutang asked the auntie to recall.

The auntie roughly recounted the conversation, and Zhan Zhao picked up on something – Wang Yong hadn't seemed concerned with the case itself. Instead, he'd been more interested in whether anyone had come asking about or investigating what had happened back then.

They sat in the café a while longer, and as more takeaway orders came in, the auntie got busy again.

The SCI team left the café with Zhu Yi and headed towards the canning factory.

It wasn't far. When they reached the front of the canning factory, they stopped across the road, and Wen Xiaorou asked Zhu Yi if she could remember anything.

Zhu Yi looked around and shook her head.

This side of the canning factory had no entrance or exit, just a continuous perimeter wall. The nearby roads had been restructured, with greenery planted on both sides. Ahead of them was a main road and some flowerbeds, with no shopfronts in sight.

Zhu Yi wanted to walk a little further, cross the road and view the canning factory from the opposite side, perhaps it would jog her memory, but Bai Yutang stopped her.

Bai Yutang gestured toward the opposite wall. They could see surveillance cameras installed at regular intervals along it.

"They've really gone all out with the security..." Zhao Hu eyed the camera setup. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was a vault, not a canning factory.

They didn't continue forward and instead retreated to the pedestrian street. Zhao Hu noticed a nearby umbrella shop, ran inside, and bought a parasol. Holding the parasol up, he walked back towards the wall of the canning factory.

Once he was likely in view of the cameras, Zhao Hu used the parasol to block them while holding up his phone in the other hand, filming the view from the wall out toward the pedestrian street. He walked along, filming as he went, simulating the perspective Zhu Yi might have had when she fled that night.

As Hu Zi was filming, he noticed two security guards in uniform approaching from around the corner, eyeing him with suspicion.

Hu Zi, quick as ever, pretended to be on a phone call, holding up his phone and talking as he walked. His performance was convincing, acting as if he was confirming the location, "I've been waiting for ages, where are you?"

The two security guards came closer and looked him over, suspicious.

"Pedestrian street? You could've said that earlier, I've been waiting so long!" Hu Zi continued, heading off in the direction of the pedestrian street.

The two guards saw him leave and went back.

Bai Yutang observed from a distance, and what he saw only made him more suspicious. There are quite a few people passing through the area, and the sun is rather strong, surely there would be others walking by with umbrellas. Besides, Zhao Hu wasn't even that close to the canning factory. Is the security team really so alert that they'd come out to check the moment someone lingered? Why would a canning factory be under such tight surveillance?

Back on the pedestrian street, Luo Tian and Qin Ou stayed behind to look around, hoping to possibly find a witness from back then. The other party seemed a little guarded, so they decided to keep a low profile.

The others returned to the police station together, as Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had a meeting with the economic crimes division.

......

On the way back to the station, Zhao Hu showed the video he had just filmed to Zhu Yi.

Zhu Yi watched it but still couldn't recall anything particularly familiar.

Zhan Zhao, sitting in the front passenger seat, was busy tapping away on his phone, messaging Zhao Jue to ask that in cases of retrograde amnesia, is it possible for key information to remain missing even after memory recovery?

Zhao Jue replied that it was indeed possible.

Zhan Zhao asked if the missing memories could be recovered through hypnosis.

Zhao Jue said that it would depend on the cause of the retrograde amnesia, if it was due to brain damage, recovery might not be possible.

"Hm..." Zhan Zhao tapped his phone against his hand, deep in thought...

According to Zhu Yi's own account, she hadn't seen anything at all at the time. So why were these people so focused on her? It's clear that the landlord couple was deliberately keeping her under surveillance. Could it be that she had forgotten something crucial?

Just as he was feeling puzzled, Zhao Jue sent another message: "Is there anything she deliberately avoids?"

Zhan Zhao froze for a moment, then remembered – Zhu Yi had once mentioned that, while in the tunnel, she had smelled a sweet coconut fragrance. Since then, she had never eaten anything with that flavour again... Deliberate avoidance...

Zhan Zhao immediately messaged Bai Chi, asking him to find some coconut-flavoured pastries or other sweets with a similar smell and buy a few.

Bai Chi recalled that the restaurant had some, so he went downstairs to get them.

Sure enough, Bai Chi found some coconut biscuits at the restaurant and bought a box.

He asked the auntie at the restaurant if there were any other similarly sweet desserts, and she recommended a few types of cakes, which Bai Chi also bought.

As he headed out with the takeaway, a few officers from the criminal investigation team happened to walk in, they probably just finished work and were coming to eat at this hour.

Ai Hu spotted Bai Chi and greeted him, and Bai Chi greeted them back.

The vice-captain of the criminal investigation team, Pei Hu, passed by and noticed Bai Chi carrying a pile of sweets. He teased him, saying, "Chi Chi, eating so many sweets? Watch your blood sugar."

Pei Hu, Ai Hu, and Zhao Hu were known as the "Three Tigers" of the force, not only because of the "Hu" in their names, but also because all three had rather cheeky personalities.

Bai Chi suddenly remembered that while going through Wang Yong's file earlier, he'd noticed that Wang Yong and Pei Hu had apparently graduated from the police academy in the same year. In fact, they had even been patrol partners for a short while, though it seemed to have only lasted a few days before Wang Yong was transferred.

"Captain Pei," Bai Chi waved him over, gesturing for him to sit nearby.

Pei Hu asked a colleague to help him order a bowl of beef noodles and some pan-fried dumplings, then went to sit with Bai Chi and asked, "What's up?"

Bai Chi asked him, "Do you know Wang Yong?"

"Which Wang Yong?" It was a fairly common name, so Pei Hu initially assumed it might've been some criminal.

"The Wang Yong who graduated the same year as you," Bai Chi reminded him.

"Oh!" Pei Hu remembered and chuckled. He turned to Bai Chi and asked, "What's he done?"

From Pei Hu's tone, Bai Chi got the sense he didn't think much of Wang Yong, so he asked, "Were you close with him?"

Pei Hu shook his head. "Close? If I were close with him, the economic crimes division would've had me under investigation by now!"

"What kind of person is he? Why did he resign?"

"Wang Yong was never suited to be a police officer," Pei Hu shook his head. "To be a cop, the most important thing is a sense of justice, right... Skills aside, if you don't even have basic integrity, you're not fit for this job."

Bai Chi nodded, That's right.

"Wang Yong was actually quite capable in many areas, his academic results when graduating from the police academy were excellent, and a lot of people thought he had potential." Pei Hu looked regretful and shook his head again. "It's a pity, he was too sly and too obsessed with money, all he cared about was getting rich and making a name for himself... To be fair, everyone has their own ambitions, and there's nothing wrong with wanting wealth and status, but if that's how you are, you shouldn't be a police officer."

"Then do you think he'd break the law for money?" Bai Chi asked.

"Er..." Pei Hu seemed a bit hesitant. "I can't accuse someone without proof, but I can tell you something that happened. Remember I said he was transferred not long after we started patrolling together?"

Bai Chi nodded. Wang Yong had originally been a patrol officer, but was suddenly moved into an administrative role, handling walk-in reports and case closures, that sort of simple paperwork.

And strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be involved in field investigations.

Zhu Yi had only been missing for a short time. Although the circumstances had been somewhat unusual, reports of missing teenagers were extremely common. Normally, unless a case was officially opened, no officer would go out to investigate.

But it seemed Wang Yong had looked into it at the time, which had made Bai Chi initially think he was a responsible officer. Now, however... it seemed there might have been something more to it.

"I've got a question for you..." Pei Hu picked up a pair of chopsticks, split them apart, and asked Bai Chi, "Say you're a patrol officer and you get two calls at the same time. One's from a girl in a shantytown saying a strange man is trying to force her door open and she needs help urgently. The other's from a guy in a villa, he's brought his mistress home and his wife's caught them, and now the wife and the mistress are fighting at the door. Now, there's only one or two patrol cars covering the whole area. Where do you go first?"

Bai Chi looked confused. "Well... of course I'd go save the girl first!"

"Exactly!" Pei Hu nodded. "But Wang Yong would go the other way."

Just then, Ai Hu brought over his noodles. Pei Hu took them, then noticed his colleagues smirking. He looked down. "Ai, who stole my dumplings?!"

Bai Chi saw that only two pan-fried dumplings were left out of a plate of eight. He grabbed a pair of chopsticks and took one for himself.

Pei Hu shook his head and tucked into his noodles.

"Wang Yong would seize every chance to cosy up to people with money and power, and loads of our colleagues didn't like him. Before he caused any real trouble, they moved him to a desk job, which honestly was the right call," Pei Hu said. "But not long after, he resigned and struck it rich. From what I've heard, he's done quite well for himself."

"Would he take the initiative to investigate a case?" Bai Chi asked.

"Well, maybe if there was something in it for him, but I really didn't know him well. When we were patrol partners, we'd sit in the car for half a day and barely exchange a word. I was a hot-blooded rookie back then, he thought I was foolish, and I thought he was slick. Neither of us thought much of the other."

Having gathered a bit more information about Wang Yong, Bai Chi picked up the bag of desserts and headed back to the SCI office.

Just as he stepped out of the elevator, the doors of the elevator next to his opened. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had just returned as well.

Zhan Zhao saw the desserts in Bai Chi's hand and figured it was probably enough. He was just about to reach for them when Fei Mu came dashing down the stairs above, waving at the pair – Meeting, meeting!

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked Wen Xiaorou to stay with Zhu Yi for a while in the break room while they attended the meeting, then headed upstairs.

Back in the office, Bai Chi filled Zhao Hu and Ma Han in on what he'd just learned from Pei Hu about Wang Yong.

Hu Zi immediately sensed there was something fishy. "If it really was Shi Yanshuo who kidnapped Zhu Yi back then, could Wang Yong have benefited by helping to cover it up?"

"It's quite possible," Jiang Ping said. "Zhu Yi's case was closed, wasn't it? That's why the previous two missing persons cases weren't linked. But they all had something in common, the yellow rain poncho. If Zhu Yi's case hadn't been closed, it would've made three similar cases, and back then it probably would've been investigated as a serial case."

...

Upstairs in the economic crimes division.

Zhan Zhao was flipping through some documents.

A hundred pages of material was no match for Zhan Zhao's ability to read at lightning speed. As he flipped through the pages, his hand suddenly paused. He pointed at a few lines and studied them carefully, then passed the file to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang took a glance and frowned too.

Fei Mu had been thorough with his work, not only had he investigated Shi Yanshuo and his family, but he had also looked into the financial situations of everyone connected to them.

Wang Yong had been one of the key subjects in the investigation. Back in the earliest days, around the time when Wang Yong resigned from the force, Wang Zhen had given him a substantial amount of money.

Zhan Zhao frowned. "That was years ago, and the timing's so precise, if they weren't connected, why would Wang Zhen give Wang Yong that much money?"

"Is Shi Yanshuo really the killer?"

Zhan Zhao asked Fei Mu, "Does Shi Yanshuo have a scar on his neck?"

Fei Mu shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

Fei Mu nodded. "I've got full-frontal photos of him!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang gave him a look of distaste.

Fei Mu pouted. "I'm joking, we caught a few shots of him on a seaside holiday with his fiancée."

As he spoke, Fei Mu flipped through a file and pulled out a set of photos, handing them over to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

They appeared to be recent pictures of Shi Yanshuo walking hand in hand with Yu Hui along a beach.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at Fei Mu with the same expression – How do you end up working like a tabloid paparazzo?

Fei Mu looked affronted – Don't look at them then!

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang kept flipping through the photos.

There were indeed pictures of Shi Yanshuo from the front and back, wearing only swim trunks, and there were no scars visible on his neck, either at the front or the back.

"Could it really not be him?" Bai Yutang frowned. "Is it possible he had surgery to remove it?"

"Yutang..." Zhan Zhao suddenly patted Bai Yutang and pointed to a photo. "Look at this!"

Bai Yutang saw that it was a picture of Shi Yanshuo and Yu Hui boarding a yacht together, Shi Yanshuo was walking ahead, with Yu Hui walking behind him, wearing a bikini covered with a light sun-protection jacket... Just as she was stepping onto the boat, she looked down slightly, and the neckline of her top shifted...

There, on her shoulder near the base of her neck, was a scar about a palm's width in length.

Both Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao were stunned.

They exchanged a glance.

Fei Mu, clearly intrigued, leaned over and asked, "What did you find?"

The two of them simultaneously pointed at Yu Hui and asked, "Roughly how tall is she?"

Fei Mu pulled a face. "Why roughly? I've got the exact number... one seventy-four point five! This girl, although she looks average, she has an amazing figure and is a swimming champion!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC |

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: June 23, 2025 by Angel

Edited: September 24, 2025 by Soojin