S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 88

The Culinary Murderer 40 – Show Off Your Skills

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That scream from the break room was clearly let out by Zhu Yi.

Everyone rushed over to the break room and, sure enough, saw that Zhu Yi had been startled awake by a nightmare. Wen Xiaorou had also woken up and was comforting her.

Zhu Yi was so frightened that she broke out in a cold sweat and was gasping for breath.

It took her quite a while to gradually calm down. She patted her chest and said, "That scared me to death!"

Zhan Zhao told the others to return to monitoring the cooking competition, while he and Zhao Jue stayed behind to ask Zhu Yi in detail about what she had dreamed.

With a serious expression, Zhu Yi said, "I dreamt about a monster!" Zhan Zhao was stunned and turned to look at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue stroked his chin, it seemed the answer had also caught him off guard – A monster?

"What kind of monster?" Wen Xiaorou asked curiously.

"It didn't feel like a dream, it felt real!" Zhu Yi said. "It was something I saw while I was in hospital!"

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment. "You mean during those days when you were hospitalised after getting injured?"

"That's right!" Zhu Yi nodded. "It must've been in the middle of the night. I saw a dark shadow approaching my room from outside, a dark shadow with two heads and four arms!"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both gave it some serious thought – Two heads and four arms? What sort of thing could that be?

Because the two of them read extensively and had fairly broad interests, their minds turned to those mythical, bizarre creatures, and even ancient eldritch gods... But of course, they both shook their heads at the same time – Surely it couldn't be that absurd.

"What did the monster do to you?" Wen Xiaorou asked.

Zhu Yi shook her head. "I just remember seeing the shadow walking towards my door, and I was lying in bed, unable to move or speak. I also saw my mom leaning over my bedside, and I was scared the monster would come in and hurt her, so I tried to wake her up but couldn't make a sound... Then suddenly, that ghostly shadow outside started waving its two hands, it was terrifying... But in the end, it backed away and didn't come into my room. Then I woke up."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue didn't quite understand and kept thinking it over, What kind of dream is this? Could it be some sort of omen? Or perhaps a manifestation of her subconscious...

But Wen Xiaorou seemed to understand. She smiled, stood up, and said, "I know what this is about."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both looked at her curiously.

Wen Xiaorou walked to the door, turned off the light in the room, then stepped out into the corridor and called for Zhao Hu.

Hu Zi ran out, looking at her curiously – Sister, what's up?

Wen Xiaorou turned on the corridor light as she beckoned to Zhao Hu with a crook of her finger, signalling for him to come over.

Zhao Hu ran over. Wen Xiaorou had him stand at the doorway, then reached both arms under his armpits and lifted them upwards, locking her hands around Zhao Hu's neck.

Hu Zi opened his mouth wide but couldn't make a sound for a long while, his eyes rolling back as his arms, trapped, flailed in mid-air.

Zhan Zhao, Zhao Jue, and Zhu Yi, who was in the room, looked at the white wall facing the doorway. There was a strange shadow cast on it... At first glance, it really did look like a monster, with two heads and four arms, and the two arms stretched up high were even swaying.

Wen Xiaorou let go. Hu Zi clutched his neck and gasped for air, nearly passing out.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue immediately understood – Zhu Yi must have woken briefly in the middle of the night while lying in a coma in her hospital bed.

At the time, someone had been hiding by the door, seemingly about to come in, but before they managed to enter, someone else had appeared behind them, subdued them, and dragged them away.

Wen Xiaorou asked Zhu Yi, "How did you wake up? Did you hear any sounds?"

"There was some kind of sound, I think, a clang, like something falling to the ground." Zhu Yi recalled her rather blurry dream, "And I smelled something too... a sweet smell!"

Zhu Yi felt like she could barely recognise the scent now and scratched her head.

Wen Xiaorou suspected that the person being restrained at the door might have been carrying a knife or some other weapon, and dropping it had made the noise that woke Zhu Yi.

As for the person who restrained them from behind, they likely had solid martial arts training and combat experience.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both felt that the smell of the dessert might be useful. Zhao Jue put the lid back on the box, placed it in the fridge, then opened the window to let in fresh air. He told Zhu Yi that was enough for today, to take a break, and that she could place the dessert by her bedside again when she slept at night.

Zhu Yi looked a bit frightened, Doing it even at night...

Wen Xiaorou thought for a moment, then said she could accompany her to the safe house tonight and told her not to be afraid, telling her not to be afraid, that she would be her bodyguard, and that she wouldn't have to be scared even if real monsters came looking for her.

Zhu Yi had been living in fear these past few days and finally felt a sense of security. "Sister Xiaorou, I'll stick with you from now on!"

Zhan Zhao thought this was a pretty good idea, Zhu Yi was a key witness and did indeed need someone to protect her.

Zhao Jue said, "Forget the safe house, stay at my place, it's close by anyway."

Zhan Zhao looked at Zhao Jue in confusion – I mentioned this to you before and got scolded for it. What now, you've suddenly changed your mind?

Zhao Jue had indeed originally not wanted to meddle, but the way Zhan Zhao resisted the idea of hypnotising Zhu Yi made him a bit curious.

......

For the moment, they set the matter with Zhu Yi aside, and Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both returned to the office.

Bai Yutang and the others were questioning Bai Chi, asking where he had seen that man before.

Bai Chi said, "It was the day I got heatstroke during military training. I woke up from a nap in the break room and it was already dark, so I got up and went to the school gate to take the bus home."

It was later than the usual time school ended, so there weren't many people on the bus.

Bai Chi had thrown up in the afternoon from the heatstroke, so his stomach was empty and growling with hunger. He suddenly had a craving for sweets, so he got off the bus one stop early, planning to go to a nearby dessert shop to buy the treats he liked.

Like Zhan Zhao, Bai Chi uses his brain a lot, so he likes sweet things.

But before Bai Chi reached the dessert shop, he was stopped by a few little thugs.

Seeing him in a school uniform, the thugs came over to ask why he was out so late, shoved him around, and demanded pocket money. One of them even reached out and knocked him on the head.

Just then, a tall man came out of the nearby dessert shop, grabbed those little thugs one by one, and tossed them into the roadside garbage bins.

That uncle was big and fierce-looking. He warned the thugs that if he ever caught them bullying anyone again, he'd dump them straight into a landfill.

The little thugs ran off in terror.

The uncle went back into the shop...

Bai Chi, on instinct, followed the uncle into the dessert shop, but the uncle had gone into the kitchen, so Xiao Bai Chi just bought his favourite macarons at the counter.

But after that, Bai Chi never saw that man again.

Back then, Bai Chi hadn't really got a clear look at the man's face, mainly because he had been very withdrawn at the time and avoided eye contact when talking to people.

But thinking about it now, the uncle from the dessert shop felt like the same man as the one in the video.

And Bai Chi also remembered that the man had a sweet scent on him, something close to coconut flakes, but slightly different from ordinary coconut.

"Where's that dessert shop?" everyone asked Bai Chi. "Is it still there?"

But Bai Chi shook his head. "It's long gone. That entire area was demolished, it should be a commercial district now."

"Then, then do you still remember the name of the shop?" Jiang Ping got ready to look it up.

Bai Chi nodded and said it was called Zhang's Pastries.

As soon as he said the name, Jiang Ping felt a headache coming on... Sure enough, a nationwide search turned up tens of thousands of shops named Zhang's Pastries...

"That's such a popular name..."

At that moment, Fei Mu reminded them that the rehearsal was starting...

Everyone's attention shifted back to the rehearsal scene.

The rehearsal was mainly to run through the process, just to avoid mistakes later and to get in a bit of practice.

Normally, no one paid much attention to this stage, but today was different. Everyone was watching Bai Ye's group closely. Since they were newcomers, no one knew what their skill level was.

Bai Ye was going to make egg sandwiches and coffee. The ingredients were fairly simple.

Because making bread took time, he had prepared it at home in advance and brought it along. He would just heat it up a bit later.

Bai Ye was mainly in charge of the coffee, while Eleven and Issel were helping with the sandwich prep. Issel was responsible for chopping vegetables, and Uncle Chopsticks was boiling and peeling the eggs.

The other groups weren't particularly focused on their own practice and were instead watching Bai Ye's table.

Bai Ye was grinding coffee beans. The hand-cranked grinder he used was rather uncommon, and a few who knew their stuff were observing it, it looked like something he had made himself.

Eleven started boiling water to cook the eggs.

Uncle Chopsticks had brought along a small hourglass, which he took out to keep time. Once the water reached a certain temperature, he placed the eggs in...

The steps didn't seem all that special, but somehow, there was a subtle finesse to them. Uncle Chopsticks' movements were incredibly fast, flipping the hourglass to time the egg, a series of actions that are indescribably cool.

On the other side of the screen, Ma Han rubbed his forehead. That hourglass is used to train snipers when loading bullets, is Eleven seriously using it for boiling eggs now?

Meanwhile, over on Issel's side, he had started chopping vegetables... just three things, lettuce, cucumber, and tomato.

Everyone watched as Issel swung his knife so fast it left afterimages. With a flurry of "ah-ah-ah" chopping sounds, the cucumber and tomato slices came out with a consistent 5-millimetre thickness, not even a millimetre off, and each thin slice looked almost transparent. The shredded lettuce followed Bai Ye's sandwich standards too. Normally, lettuce is just placed in whole leaves, but Bai Ye insisted on cutting it into fine shreds, proper, thread-thin slivers, as fine as strands of hair...

Issel shredded the lettuce so finely that it had a spun-sugar texture. Once he was done, he put away the small knife, and on the table lay a neat row of cucumber slices, a row of tomato slices, and a row of lettuce threads, just like a food advert.

While everyone was marvelling at his skill, Eleven's timer went off. He lifted the lid of the pot and, using a pair of chopsticks, picked out all five eggs one by one.

Everyone watched in stunned silence as Uncle Chopsticks picked up the eggs, each with a single, precise movement, no need to aim... How is he so accurate? No wonder he's called Uncle Chopsticks, is it because he used chopsticks so well?

Uncle Chopsticks plunged the five eggs into ice water and flipped the hourglass once again.

The onlookers were baffled – This uncle flips the hourglass every thirty seconds, and he should be all flustered and disorganised, why does he move so methodically?

After the eggs had been chilled for thirty seconds, Uncle Chopsticks picked one up and placed it on the chopping board. He tapped the shell with a silver soup spoon, twisted it around, and gently removed both halves of the shell. Inside was a perfectly translucent egg, precisely soft-boiled with the whites like jelly.

With a flick of the wrist, Uncle Chopsticks put the two eggshell halves together and tossed them behind him. The shells flew through the air... straight into a small opening at the top of a rubbish bin five metres away—without the slightest deviation.

Uncle Chopsticks calmly flipped the hourglass again, picked up the next egg, and tossed the next set of shells...

By the time he had peeled all five eggs, Xiao Ding stepped on the pedal at the bottom of the garbage bin to open the lid and discovered that the ten half-shells were neatly lined up in a row.

The twins stuck out their tongues – No wonder he's Uncle Chopsticks, this accuracy!

A whole group of contestants were watching, dumbfounded. And this is just the assistant?

In the SCI office, everyone was equally gobsmacked.

Zhao Hu and the others turned to Bai Yutang – Captain, how did you train those two?

Bai Yutang was at a loss for words – Those two, it's like they've developed some strange obsession and are evolving in a bizarre direction.

At that moment, everyone turned to look at Bai Ye.

They were all thinking, If the assistants are already this amazing, how incredible must the head chef be?

Bai Ye was leisurely grinding coffee beans with his little tin grinder, seemingly quite satisfied with his assistants' performance – Yutang really is something special, maybe he ought to open a training class.

‿︵‿︵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: June 30, 2025 by Angel

Edited: October 6, 2025 by Soojin