S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 106

The Culinary Murderer 58 – Analysis of the Cards

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Attending an old classmate's wedding is something most people have experienced.

The wedding venue is a rather magical place. Many guests only know one side of the couple, learning about the other through others' stories on the day itself. So besides offering blessings, the wedding venue also becomes a large-scale gossip scene.

Today, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had, for once, put on formal suits, ready to attend Yu Hui and Shi Yanshuo's wedding.

When the two of them came downstairs, one in a white suit and the other in a black, Gongsun, who was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a slice of bread in his mouth, shook his head. "Are you two going to a classmate's wedding, or are you off to get married yourselves?"

Zhao Zhen also remarked – Wearing this kind of thing is a bit of a show-stealer!

Bai Jintang came out of the kitchen with his own coffee, still in pyjamas.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked at him in puzzlement – Big Brother, you're not changing?

Bai Jintang flopped onto the sofa, declaring – No way am I going! I earned three days off from the twins for that live stream stunt!

Gongsun plopped down beside him. Good call! Saying this, he reached out to draw a card from the table.

On the coffee table lay a strange deck of cards, not playing cards, nor tarot cards, but "death" cards.

From time to time, Zhao Zhen would travel the world collecting odd props, either for his magic shows or for inspiration. His latest acquisition was this deck of over three hundred cards, each depicting a peculiar method of death.

Zhao Zhen had been practising sleight of hand with them, and when Gongsun walked past, he drew a card at random. The deck suited Gongsun's aesthetic perfectly.

He casually drew a card, tossed it on the coffee table, and then glanced down... only to find it was a massacre card.

"Whoa!" Zhao Zhen examined the card closely, as though looking for some kind of marking.

"What is it?" Gongsun asked.

"Out of more than three hundred cards, only a dozen or so are group cards. Most cards show only one or two dead figures." Zhao Zhen cast a glance at the three hundred-odd cards lined up neatly across the coffee table. The odds of drawing one were rather low...

Besides the illustration, the card also had a brief line of text. Depending on the place of origin of each method of death, the language varied.

Gongsun stared at the letters for a while, thought they must be Italian, and asked Bai Jintang, "What does it say?"

Big Brother Bai glanced at it, seeming a little puzzled, and thought that the picture and the text didn't match. "Shared fear."

Gongsun blinked, tilting his head to study the card.

The image on the card showed a group of people lying face down on the ground, their heads together, forming a circle, that is, lying in the shape of a flower. They appeared to be dead, each with a knife stuck in their back... The corpses in the drawing wore clothing in two different colours, which looked like two opposing factions.

Some of the illustrations and text on the cards were very clear, while others were obscure.

Some could be understood at a glance, for example, when an image showed someone beheaded, the accompanying text would be "decapitation."

But some, even after prolonged study, made no sense. For instance, a corpse lying beside a flower, and the word alongside it was "death by suffocation," which left people rather baffled.

"Could it just be scribbles?" Bai Jintang asked.

Gongsun clicked his tongue and shook his head. "I thought about it yesterday. It's very likely that the dead person had a severe pollen allergy, and then the flower was in full bloom, right? At the moment the flower was in full bloom, he happened to be lying next to the flower, and the allergy affected the respiratory system, leading to suffocation, which is very reasonable!"

Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen both thought about it and felt it made sense. So this deck even came with puzzles, which require some imagination.

"What about this one then?" Big Brother Bai asked Gongsun, holding up the group card.

"Hmm..." Gongsun thought for a moment, then shook his head. "It feels like it needs an extraordinary kind of imagination..."

All three of them looked up at Zhan Zhao, who was trying to tie his own necktie.

After wrapping it around three times and twisting it twice, Zhan Zhao ended up with a massive, stubborn knot. He was now frantically trying to untangle it.

Gongsun and the others couldn't help but think of Lu Ban playing with a ball of yarn and ending up tangled himself.

Zhan Zhao tilted his head, studying the knot. Tying it had been easy, why is untying it so hard? He fiddled with it for ages, only making the knot tighter.

Gongsun and Zhao Zhen shook their heads – A classic example of humanity's failure to tame its hands.

Bai Yutang came over to untie Zhan Zhao's tie, and Gongsun raised his hand and passed the card to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took it and glanced at it, "Hmm..."

By the time Bai Yutang had freed the crumpled tie, found an iron and ironed it flat, Zhan Zhao had already had a flash of inspiration and worked out a "storyline" in his head.

"These people, might be two gangs of robbers!" Zhan Zhao had just started to speak when Bai Jintang and Gongsun were already lost. Zhao Zhen also stroked his chin – It even came with its own character background setting!

"One group, the ones in white, robbed a shop, beat the owner to death, and ran away with the money." Zhan Zhao unhurriedly narrated the story he had matched with the card. "The second group of robbers, the ones in black, broke into the shop after the white-clothed people had left, only to find the money already gone and the owner lying dead on the floor. At that moment, the owner's wife suddenly came back... and walked straight into the scene. Naturally, she assumed that the men before her were her husband's killers and turned to run... The black-clad robbers caught her, killed her too, and then fled."

Zhao Zhen and Bai Jintang crossed their arms and looked at the sky. They felt that the prelude was quite long, but they didn't hear what it had to do with the cards. Is he going to write a ten-thousand-word essay based off a picture?

"Then," Zhan Zhao continued his narration, "the owner's son returned home."

Gongsun couldn't shake the feeling that the plot sounded like some sort of crime film... and an awfully clichéd one at that. Next would surely be the revenge arc, and judging by the outcome pictured on the card, it was going to be a satisfying drama.

"The two gangs didn't know the shop had a hidden surveillance camera. After reviewing the footage, the son identified the murderer who killed his parents!" Zhan Zhao shook his head. "But, when he called the police, he didn't hand over the footage."

"Why not?" The police officers present all felt their blood pressure rise – Isn't handing over the evidence the most natural thing in the world?

"Because the shop had a security alarm. If a robbery happened, the alarm would automatically go off. Only two kinds of people could disable it: someone with the code, or the police."

Bai Yutang looped the tie around his own neck, tied it neatly, then slipped it off and put it around Zhan Zhao's neck as he said, "The fact that the alarm didn't go off in this scenario indicates that the robbers turned off the alarm in advance. Could they have an insider at the police station?"

Zhan Zhao nodded. "That's exactly why the son held back."

Zhao Zhen suddenly found himself curious about the plot's progression and asked Zhan Zhao, "And then? Did the son get his revenge?"

"Afterwards, as expected, the case was never solved and became a cold case, while the son disappeared." Zhan Zhao's tone grew suspenseful. "Years later, members of both groups suddenly began to die under mysterious circumstances!"

Bai Jintang nodded with satisfaction – So the revenge had begun?

"After some investigation, the two groups of robbers quickly identified the possible avenger as the son of the shop owner. With a common enemy, they prepared to cooperate!" Zhan Zhao said, then suddenly changed the subject, "But soon after... they discovered that the owner's son had died of illness many years ago, and he had shown no signs of wanting to take revenge before his death."

Bai Jintang, Gongsun and Zhao Zhen hadn't expected the plot to go that way, so they all asked Zhan Zhao together, "So the murderer wasn't the son? Or was the dead son an imposter?"

Zhan Zhao smiled slightly. "That's exactly the problem! Whether the one who died was the real son or a fake, the person now going after both groups is someone whose identity is unknown, right?"

Zhao Zhen rubbed his chin. "So this unknown avenger is their common fear?"

Unexpectedly, Zhan Zhao shook his head.

Gongsun and Bai Jintang exchanged a puzzled glance. "It isn't?"

"What these people didn't know was that the couple who owned the shop had a friend... The friend had a daughter who was seriously ill. He desperately needed money for her to have an operation, but he had already spent all his savings, so he turned to the couple for help. The money that the couple had been robbed of that day was actually ready to be given to this friend for his daughter's operation... But the money was taken, and the couple were killed... The friend's daughter's condition worsened because the operation was delayed, and she died a few days later."

Bai Jintang, Gongsun and Zhao Zhen were all stunned – There is such a development? That really is an unexpected leap of imagination!

"Their real, common fear wasn't the vengeful son, nor the family members of any of the people they had killed who were known to the gang of robbers and could be found," Zhan Zhao flicked his finger lightly. "Their real, common fear was an unknown existence."

Zhao Zhen studied the card carefully and nodded. "Because they're lying face down with their heads together, and every stab wound is in the back, they weren't stabbing each other, it was an unnoticed killer who struck them all from behind?"

"These two groups, in order to avoid being killed, decided to work together." Zhan Zhao pointed at the picture. "That's why they formed a circle. But shouldn't they have stood back-to-back to avoid being ambushed? Why were they facing inwards instead?"

"Because they already had a suspect?" Bai Jintang pieced together Zhan Zhao's line of thought. "The owner's son. They put all their attention on this conspicuous, common target, so they ignored the real enemy and were wiped out in a surprise attack?"

Bai Yutang reached out, picked up the card and glanced at it... Zhan Zhao's theory didn't come from nowhere. He didn't know if it was some kind of coincidence... but there was something uncanny about how the card meshed with what the two of them had been discussing the previous day, after questioning Fang Beibei.

If they overlaid the case they were investigating into the cards, they would probably understand why Shi Yanshuo and Yu Hui had to get married and why they had to invite them to the wedding.

The two sides forming a circle, on one side was Yu Hui's gang of pirate descendants, on the other was Shi Yanshuo's group of Dutchmen. Those trapped in the middle were Su Hai, Tan Wen, Guan Mei... the "visible, common" enemies.

But the one who really wanted them dead wasn't even in the cards.

But not being in the cards didn't mean not being in the case. Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao already had one, or rather two, suspects in their minds.

Bai Yutang grabbed his car keys and left with Zhan Zhao to attend the wedding. The SCI surveillance vehicle was already parked at the entrance.

SWAT officers Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou had also arrived near the wedding venue with their team.

Everyone was in position. Whether the final outcome would be total annihilation or a clean sweep was about to be revealed.

Gongsun put the card back onto the coffee table. Sitting beside him, Bai Jintang stared thoughtfully at the dead figures on the card and asked, "The real killer's targets, are they really just these two groups?"

Both Gongsun and Zhao Zhen looked up at Big Brother Bai.

Bai Jintang asked, "The robbery led to the death of the real murderer's daughter. Therefore, all those who caused the robbery will be the target of revenge. In addition to the two groups of robbers, there seems to be another party."

"The shop's alarm never went off, so the son suspected that someone inside the police station was working with the robbers..." Gongsun frowned. "That must be the real reason Yu Hui insisted on inviting SCI to the wedding..."

Shuffling the deck, Zhao Zhen shook his head. "They weren't lured in to investigate the case, they were made one of the targets of revenge."

Gongsun glanced at Bai Jintang and asked, "Isn't that a bit unreasonable? Even if the disappearance case back then was mishandled by the police, it wasn't SCI's fault..."

Bai Jintang smiled. "If we're talking about reason, then even if the robbery hadn't happened back then, even if the surgery had gone smoothly, could you really guarantee that the daughter definitely wouldn't have died?"

Gongsun hummed thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. "That's also possible..."

"The target of the killer's revenge might include the doctor who performed the surgery, even the shop-owning couple who lent him money, because he might believe that if the surgery hadn't been carried out, his daughter might still be alive." Bai Jintang felt that this was an unsolvable riddle.

Zhao Zhen fiddled with a few cards with his nimble fingers and said slowly, "What people really can't accept is 'maybe'. People are driven mad by obsession, consumed by the logic of 'If only this had happened, or if that hadn't... things might be different now!'"

‿︵‿︵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: September 6, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 2, 2025 by Soojin