S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 108

The Culinary Murderer 60 – Oyster

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"Prison?"

Ma Han and Zhao Hu looked at each other, both puzzled as they thought it over... If anyone here knew about prisons, it should be the two of them, right? After all, they went there from time to time to find a prisoner or something.

But they had never seen a prison doing this kind of gardening.

Eleven also looked at Issel in some confusion – What kind of prison is this?

Issel smiled. "I once took on a job, helping a rich businessman rescue his kidnapped daughter."

Ma Han and Zhao Hu both frowned – Why didn't that businessman just call the police?

"The businessman's business wasn't exactly black or white, more in the grey area, so he usually kept a low profile. His precious daughter was sixteen, and normally you couldn't tell she was from a wealthy family, so it was very strange that she had been kidnapped... And the kidnappers didn't call him to demand ransom either, but according to the video footage from the surveillance cameras, his daughter had indeed been abducted by two men in suits who got out of a white car."

Ma Han and Zhao Hu shook their heads as they listened – If it wasn't for money, then surely it was revenge?

"That was what the businessman thought too, so he wanted to rescue his daughter as quickly as possible, and he asked a friend to find me, because... well, let's just say when it comes to finding people, I'm the fastest."

Ma Han and Zhao Hu both nodded – That's true. Whether it's finding people or things, Uncle Radar is the quickest.

"The businessman equipped me with a private armed team. I was responsible for finding his daughter, and then professionals were responsible for the rescue."

As he spoke, Issel gestured with his chin towards the estate ahead. "The search wasn't that difficult, and in the end, I found an estate rather similar to this one."

"An estate?"

"Mm-hm." Issel nodded. "By coincidence, I also uncovered a very sinister serial murder case."

"Tell us the details."

At that moment, someone spoke from behind.

Wen Xiaorou came up carrying a bag of food.

Handing the food to Zhao Hu, Wen Xiaorou, who had just studied the terrain of the estate in detail and also found it strange, became interested in Issel's account of the rescue operation, thinking it might provide some useful insights.

"Well... let's look at the surrounding woods first." Issel pointed at the woods ahead. "From above, it didn't look like there's a problem, but if you stare at it long enough, you'll start to get a sense of visual disorientation, and it'll become hard to judge distance."

Wen Xiaorou nodded – Indeed.

"Now imagine, what if you were on the inside, looking out, right in the middle of it?" Issel asked.

Ma Han thought for a moment. "You'd get lost, wouldn't you?"

"The effect is similar to being lost in a maze," Issel said as he pointed to the buildings in the distance. "Inside the estate, the villas were connected by many corridors."

Wen Xiaorou nodded. "The kidnapped girls also mentioned that Shi Yanshuo's house had lots of long corridors, could it be the same corridors?"

"These corridors were all elevated, and did you notice a pattern? Each section of woods corresponds proportionally to a corridor." Issel made a rectangle with his hands, like a painter composing a sketch.

Sure enough, wherever there was a patch of woods, there was a corridor facing it; the woods followed a certain alignment, and the corridors followed the same path... perfectly parallel.

"Surveillance?" Wen Xiaorou murmured.

"Exactly. If someone runs into those woods, they will be completely disoriented inside, but the person in the corridor can clearly see where the fleeing person is. At the same time..." Issel continued, "the corridors aren't all at the same height."

The others had also noticed that some corridors were higher, some lower, creating a staggered appearance from the outside, which made them less conspicuous.

"Combined with the internal staircases, the corridor structure becomes quite intricate. Have you heard of the Winchester House?"

"That famous haunted house?" Zhao Hu recalled a documentary he'd seen. "They say the lady of the house was obsessed with architecture and spent her entire life constantly remodelling it, so the internal layout is especially complicated. Anyone who goes in can easily get lost."

"Houses with this kind of layout have secret passages, hidden compartments, and concealed rooms, those are the places where people get locked up." Issel gave a cold laugh. "It's like a hamster cage: as long as the mouse keeps running forward, it will keep circling around. As long as it isn't on the same floor as the person searching, it'll never be caught. The only way is..."

"Break through the corridors?" Wen Xiaorou suddenly caught on. "The entrance to the hidden chamber definitely isn't inside the corridors... but breaking through the corridors is the easiest way to locate the hidden chamber!" Wen Xiaorou put away the tablet and picked up the walkie-talkie to contact Xiao Fei. "Captain, have the whole team equipped with breaching gear."

Xiaofei immediately arranged for the equipment.

Zhao Hu tugged at Issel and asked, "So, did you end up rescuing the girl? Didn't you say you caught a serial killer?"

"Mhmm." Issel nodded. "In that estate, there was an old man with a rare blood disease, or perhaps it wasn't a blood disease, but a mental illness. He kidnapped young girls to drink their blood at regular intervals."

Zhao Hu and Ma Han couldn't help letting out an "Ugh~", their faces full of disgust.

"My approach was rather brutal, but it wasn't a law enforcement action, so... fight violence with violence." Issel spread his hands, "Those guys responsible for the operation simply tore down the roof and dug three feet into the ground, leaving no stone unturned. Not only did we find the businessman's daughter, but several other girls were also rescued. They were all young girls who had been kidnapped to be bled. Unfortunately, some of them had died and were buried in the garden."

Issel cast a glance at the estate ahead. "Whenever you see an estate with this kind of layout, you can be pretty certain the owner's up to no good. If he isn't some perverted kidnapper, then he's the head of a cult. Either way, such an estate is nothing more than a prison without fences, built openly in some remote mountain area, and what's locked inside aren't beasts, but lambs."

"This bastard... went to all that trouble to build this place, who knows how many people have been killed..." Zhao Hu muttered as he asked Ma Han, "Besides amnesia, did those rescued girls suffer any other injuries?"

Ma Han replied, "Xin Xin went to see the victims yesterday. They had severe head trauma and numerous healed wounds, but they didn't look like beatings, more like falls and scrapes, and there were signs of healed fractures. Also, every one of them had damage to their throats."

"Their throats?"

Ma Han nodded. "The doctor said it was caused by prolonged high-pitched screaming."

"That fucking pervert!" Zhao Hu cursed under his breath.

Eleven had been listening all along. Uncle Chopsticks hadn't really been paying much attention to the case before, being too busy with his new ‘side hustle', but after hearing the two of them talk, he suddenly asked, "So his main purpose was to scare them, right?"

Ma Han and Zhao Hu thought it over. "It should be..."

"So he deliberately made them scream in terror?" Uncle Chopsticks asked with genuine interest.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han exchanged glances. Issel looked curious too and asked Eleven, "Do you know something?"

"I've seen this before!" Eleven said. "He's not a pervert."

"How isn't that perverted?" Zhao Hu and Ma Han both scoffed.

Uncle Chopsticks quickly shook his head. "No, I'm not saying he isn't perverted. Whether he is or not, I can't say. But he's doing this for a reason, it's not because some pervert enjoys watching people get scared!"

The three of them were surprised. "Then what was it for?"

......

In the estate's garden, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang walked along a path paved with white sand.

Although this wedding seemed fishy in every way, Shi Yanshuo had money to burn, so he must have hired a decent wedding planning company to organise it. All in all, the decorations were quite impressive.

There weren't many guests in the garden, but there were plenty of waiters, and even a few people playing the cello. The atmosphere was so warm and pleasant that it hardly looked like a wedding for a kidnapper and murderer.

Zhan Zhao tilted his head to gaze at a cake, which was more than a meter tall, then glanced at the house behind it...

The houses were connected by overhead corridors.

Bai Yutang was also looking up at the corridors, but his attention was drawn to the cameras mounted on top. The cameras' angles... seemed to be facing outward.

Bai Yutang roughly estimated the range that the camera could capture, and it was probably just enough to capture the direction of the woods.

After observing the terrain, Bai Yutang also discovered that although this manor looked quite ordinary, the security was quite strict, and the surveillance covered practically every angle with no blind spots...

Noticing Bai Yutang frowning, Zhan Zhao asked, "What's wrong?"

"The angles are a bit tricky," Bai Yutang muttered to himself.

"Angles?" Zhan Zhao was still looking around. What angles?

Just then, Zhan Zhao's phone rang. He picked it up and saw that it was Zhao Jue calling.

Zhao Jue should still be at the hospital.

Zhan Zhao answered the call and heard Zhao Jue's voice on the other end. "Kitten."

Zhan Zhao was already used to Zhao Jue's "animalising" nicknames and asked, "What's going on?"

Zhao Jue was sitting in the ward at that moment, going through Bobby's notebook that Lan Qi had brought him yesterday.

"In Bobby's diary, there's a passage recording a strange incident he experienced." Zhao Jue suddenly chuckled and asked, "Do you know about oysters?"

Zhan Zhao was speechless. "The same oysters Xiao Bai uses to feed the cat?  They are the ones used in soup."

Bai Yutang glanced at Zhan Zhao beside him – Of all times, why is he thinking about food now?

"Have you ever heard of a starry sky oyster?" Zhao Jue suddenly asked.

Zhan Zhao was baffled. "Huh?"

"These oysters are about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with a black shell patterned with white, cotton-like streaks from the mother-of-pearl, resembling a nebula. It has lots of pale spots, and it even glows in the dark. It looks like a starry sky, which is why it's called the starry sky oyster. Each one costs around ten thousand US dollars for the smaller ones, and over a hundred thousand for the large ones."

Zhan Zhao's face twisted in disgust as he turned to Bai Yutang "How much do the oysters Luban eats cost each?"

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao in puzzlement. "Two and a half yuan each... if you buy a whole box, you can get a discount."

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment. "Are there oysters that cost a hundred thousand US dollars each?"

Bai Yutang was amused by him. "In that case, it wouldn't be feeding Luban oysters, it would be using Luban to feed oysters."

Zhan Zhao was stunned, then turned back to ask Zhao Jue, "What does this have to do with our case?"

"Bobby's notebook contains a strange account of his experience eating these oysters."

Zhan Zhao was quite surprised – Well, crazy as Bobby was, he certainly had seen and tasted some unusual things.

"These oysters have another name: the screaming oyster," Zhao Jue went on.

Zhan Zhao froze. "Screaming?"

"Mm-hmm! Oysters, as you know, keep their shells clamped tightly shut, don't they? Ordinary oysters are pried open with a knife and eaten, but if a starry sky oyster is pried open with a knife, it will liquefy. It can only be eaten when it opens its mouth on its own. It's said that its flesh is the most tender and delicate thing in the world, and that texture is something no other food can replicate, it's absolutely unique..."

Hearing Zhao Jue describe it, Zhan Zhao found himself growing curious. Just how delicious could it be?

"So boil it first and then eat it?" Zhan Zhao pondered aloud. Surely the oyster wasn't about to open its mouth for people by itself. Unless, could it be that if you gave it 100,000 US dollars, it would open its mouth? The legendary ‘open eyes at the sight of money'... no, wait... ‘open mouth'!

"It's called the screaming oyster because it opens its mouth when it hears screams." Zhao Jue, having held back the punchline for long enough, finally revealed it.

Zhan Zhao just stood there frozen, tilting his head. "Screams... don't tell me..."

"Bobby recorded that he had once attended a banquet of pirate captains on an island. The pirates had locked several girls in a cabin, where they also raised sharks. The terrified girls screamed incessantly, while the pirates sat around the cabin eating oysters... The oysters would open their shells in the midst of the screams, and they simply scooped out the flesh with a spoon. Because Bobby had cured the pirate captain's chronic illness, he was invited to the feast. He said those oysters really were delicious, a taste he had never encountered before. At the same time, Bobby said that these oysters might also contain a kind of mild toxin. It wasn't lethal, but it could cause hallucinations. In short, it was a strange, sinister, and highly addictive food. Moreover, when the oyster opened, it released a cloyingly sweet fragrance, something like coconut flakes."

Bai Yutang noticed that Zhan Zhao, holding the phone, suddenly wore an expression he had never seen before, as if he were completely stunned.

"Cat?" Bai Yutang poked Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao finally came back to himself, then immediately started looking for something with his head bowed.

Bai Yutang also lowered his head and asked, "What are you looking for?"

"My worldview!" Zhan Zhao did not sound as if he were joking. "It shattered into pieces all over the floor!"

......

"Eating oysters?"

At the surveillance point, Zhao Hu, Ma Han and Issel were now looking at Eleven with the same expression as Zhan Zhao – staring at Eleven in utter disbelief. "You're saying Shi Yanshuo scared those women half to death, just so he could eat oysters?"

"Isn't his family in the seafood business? I get it now, so that's how it is." Chopsticks Uncle seemed almost amused. "I once saw a video at a broker's place! A group of people were seated around a long dining table, each with a massive oyster in front of them. Suddenly, there was a burst of ear-piercing screams... and then the oysters opened their mouths on their own. That group of well-dressed people dug in with golden spoons, eating away with delight. I asked around out of curiosity and was told that these oysters could only be eaten at a few particular ‘restaurants', each meal costing anywhere from a hundred to two hundred thousand US dollars. I wanted to try one myself, but apparently these oysters are extremely difficult to harvest and mostly grow in places where there are shipwrecks... And even if you managed to get one, you'd have to capture a few women to scream. It's said that not all screams work, it has to be a voice of a particular pitch to get the oysters to open. And you can't use a recording, because the oysters respond to a specific kind of vibration. So the screaming has to be live..."

Zhao Hu and Ma Han exchanged stunned glances – We always thought that Shi Yanshuo made money by laundering money and smuggling. Now it seems, holy shit! Those are just side businesses. This guy's main business is running a restaurant. What's dark cuisine? This is it!

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Angel: I swear to ANYTHING, if we went through all that, all the people with the same name, all the various things that didn't seem connected yet were all somehow connected, just so these people could EAT SOME FUCKING OYSTERS...

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: September 8, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 2, 2025 by Soojin