S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 120

Special Files – Collector 05 – Prisoner

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The whole SCI team went to "catch someone in the act", only to end up gossiping over a complete misunderstanding.

Issel had been entrusted by Kalin to monitor a prisoner called Xiaoxue, who had twelve lives on her hands and suffered from severe mental illness.

It was said that Zhao Jue had once recommended a professor from X University to treat Xiaoxue, which stirred Zhan Zhao's curiosity. "Which professor?"

"Professor Tian Ming."

"Tian Ming?" Zhan Zhao frowned, finding the name a little unfamiliar.

But Zhan Zhao had graduated a long time ago, so he guessed he became a professor after he went abroad to study... Still, he would occasionally return to X University to give lectures and had no memory of such a professor. Has he retired?

Seeing Zhan Zhao's puzzlement, Kalin lowered her voice and said, "Professor Tian Ming and his wife were Xiaoxue's first and second victims."

Zhan Zhao froze for a moment, and Bai Yutang was just as shocked. "You mean, Xiaoxue killed the professor Zhao Jue recommended to treat her, along with his wife?"

Kalin nodded. "Although it was inferred that Tian Ming and his wife were the earliest victims, their bodies were the last to be discovered."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang simultaneously turned their gaze to the photo of Xiaoxue on Issel's phone. She looked so harmless, as if she could not hurt a soul...

Kalin gave the two of them a brief introduction to Xiaoxue's situation.

Xiaoxue had started receiving various psychological treatments back in middle school, but none of them had any effect. Hospitals and doctors concluded that she was not ill.

Although she had caused a lot of trouble, in the end, none of it had led to substantial harm. To outsiders, it looked as if her parents were making a fuss over nothing.

Yet her parents had persisted in seeking out good doctors to treat their daughter until finally, they reached Kalin through friends.

Kalin described Xiaoxue's condition to Zhao Jue, but he had not taken it very seriously. "So many doctors think she isn't ill, that means she isn't ill."

Kalin was baffled. "Doing those things when she's not ill... she usually behaves so well."

Zhao Jue had been amused by Kalin. "Doing bad things from a young age means she's a natural-born troublemaker. The fact that she usually behaves well doesn't mean she's truly well-behaved, it just means she's cunning, able to disguise and cover up."

Kalin asked Zhao Jue to think of a solution, after all, up until then, she had not caused any major disaster, so perhaps she could still be treated.

So Zhao Jue recommended Tian Ming, a professor who was an expert in adolescent psychological problems. It was said he had dealt with countless little troublemakers, so he suggested letting him assess whether she was ill or not.

Up to this point, things were still fairly straightforward.

Accompanied by her parents, Xiaoxue made an appointment to meet Professor Tian Ming. After a conversation, unlike the other doctors, Tian Ming believed Xiaoxue was a very rare case and devised a long-term treatment plan for her.

Xiaoxue was also highly cooperative... After a year of intensive treatment, her condition had improved significantly, and she had become more cheerful... She graduated from high school smoothly and went on to enter university.

Hearing this, Zhan Zhao frowned, stroking his chin, lost in thought.

What was Zhan Zhao concerned about... From an ordinary person's point of view, it might seem that once someone became more lively and cheerful, their psychological problems were cured.

But in truth, psychotherapy was not personality therapy. A lively, cheerful person is not necessarily psychologically healthy, just as someone quiet and taciturn is not necessarily psychologically unhealthy.

When Zhan Zhao first heard Kalin's description of Xiaoxue, he reached a conclusion similar to Zhao Jue's. She had seen so many doctors, and the unanimous evaluation had been that she was not ill, so the great likelihood was that she really was not ill. Just because she looked well-behaved didn't mean she was a good person. People could disguise themselves to appear kind-hearted when, in fact, they were very unkind.

And after a long course of treatment, she had become cheerful and lively. That only meant her disguise had grown stronger; it did not prove she had been cured.

......

Zhan Zhao could not help feeling that this treatment plan was a little strange. What exactly had been diagnosed? Had it not been clearly stated?

As a professional, Zhan Zhao had a vague sense that something was off.

Not long after, Professor Tian Ming disappeared. The university received his resignation letter, saying he had been hired by a foreign university, and so had gone abroad with his wife.

The matter itself was rather suspicious, but not entirely implausible.

No one at the university thought to verify it, after all, it was common enough for good teachers to be poached. And since no family members came looking for him, the matter was not taken seriously and was muddled over just like that...

It wasn't until later, when Xiaoxue was caught, that investigators traced back to the university, discovered Tian Ming's disappearance, and eventually found the couple's bodies.

Xiaoxue might have looked well-behaved, but her methods of killing were nothing like those of a little girl. She used direct violence, employing sharp tools such as knives, hammers, and axes, so the crime scenes were exceptionally brutal. Yet afterwards, she would carefully, even professionally, clean up the scene and hide the corpses.

So far, she had committed five murders, with a total of twelve victims.

In Tian Ming's home, she killed both him and his wife. After cleaning up the scene, she cut the bodies into pieces and sealed them in two lime tanks.

Tian Ming's wife had been a dried-flower artist, so in her home there were two large, specially made lime tanks and plenty of desiccants.

Xiaoxue calmly placed the body parts in the tanks and added a large quantity of desiccants... By the time the police discovered them, the couple had already become two dried corpses arranged inside the tanks.

After "recovering", Xiaoxue went on to live a "normal" university life. In just two years, she had been in four relationships. However, every one of her boyfriends cheated on her, and the result was that the unfaithful boyfriends and their lovers were all killed by her.

"Wait a minute..." Zhan Zhao interrupted Kalin's narration. "There were twelve victims in total. Excluding Tian Ming and his wife, that leaves ten. Four relationships, four boyfriends and four lovers, makes eight. Who were the other two?"

Kalin winked at Zhan Zhao. "Who says a cheating man can only cheat with one lover?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked utterly stunned – This is far too outrageous. To fall for a scumbag once might be bad luck, twice could be extreme misfortune. But four times in a row, and all of them cheaters? From a statistical point of view, is that even plausible?

"That's exactly what's so strange about it," Kalin continued.

Those four boyfriends, no one knew how Xiaoxue had met them. They were not Xiaoxue's classmates, and they had no overlap with her daily life. It always began with chatting online, then meeting in person, then developing into a relationship. Afterwards, the men cheated, and then they disappeared.

From a police officer's perspective, Bai Yutang thought the case was not complicated at all. When someone was murdered, the partner was always the first to be investigated... All the more so when there were records of arguments and chats. So why was it only after so many killings that she was finally caught?

"Because it was just like with Tian Ming, no one ever contacted the victims, or rather, no one could reach them. It didn't attract any attention, no one reported it to the police, and nobody even realised they were missing." Kalin shook her head as she spoke. "Xiaoxue was only caught because of an accident."

When Xiaoxue killed her last pair of victims, she happened to be in the middle of dismembering them when two window cleaners working on the high-rise building came down to the window on that floor.

From the floor-to-ceiling windows of that large apartment, the view inside was crystal clear. The blood-soaked crime scene terrified the two window cleaners so much that they immediately called the police.

That's how Xiaoxue was caught. Based on the chat logs on her phone, the police found messages with three other boyfriends, which looked suspicious. After investigating, it turned out those men had all disappeared.

Xiaoxue was studying at a university in A City, so the case fell under the jurisdiction of the A City police.

Although the case was huge, since she had been caught in the act, it wasn't especially complicated... Later, after professional assessment, Xiaoxue was found to be suffering from severe depression, paranoia, and mania...

Zhan Zhao frowned. "Didn't several evaluations before all say she wasn't ill?"

"She wasn't ill before, but she became ill later," Kalin sighed. "And Tian Ming even said she'd recovered. Her parents thought maybe it was Tian Ming who made her ill. Although she occasionally caused trouble before, after being ‘cured' by him, she actually became a serial killer."

After Xiaoxue's parents told the police about the situation, the police also wanted to find Professor Tian Ming to ask about the situation. That's when they discovered that the professor had already been missing for several years. Officers were sent to his home, and in the overgrown garden of his villa, they found the bodies.

"How does that sound?" Kalin finished speaking, then asked Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang for their opinion on the case.

The two exchanged a glance, both feeling there were plenty of suspicious points.

One asked if there was a detailed case report, the other if there were any treatment records from Tian Ming. In short, with so little information, it was hard to make any judgement.

The two of them also turned to look at Issel – So why exactly are you monitoring Xiaoxue's chat logs?

Kalin found the matter rather awkward to speak about. "From Xiaoxue's parents' perspective, I'd recommended them a ‘quack doctor', who turned their child from not ill into ill, and from a minor problem into a major one. Although they never came to cause me trouble, they no longer trusted me. This time, even if Zhao Jue went in person, it wouldn't work. Later, I heard from a friend that Xiaoxue had received treatment from a certain professor at X University. Under that professor's arrangement, Xiaoxue was allowed to use a cell phone under supervision every day... and on the very first day she got her phone back, she added an online friend and started a relationship."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang continued to look shocked – How did that happen?

"Apparently, it was a student group arranged by that professor," Kalin explained. "Supposedly part of a teaching experiment project."

Bai Yutang couldn't help opening his mouth, though he didn't voice the words. Even so, Zhan Zhao could clearly read the shape of them – Are they out of their minds?

Zhan Zhao understood at once. It was that kind of radical teaching style, which emphasised a philosophy of ‘learning through practice'...

"That professor, is it Wu Wen?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Kalin nodded. "When I heard about it, I didn't go into detail with Zhao Jue. I just asked him if he knew a Professor Wu Wen at X University, and what he thought of his ability."

"What did Zhao Jue say?" Zhan Zhao suddenly grew curious. When Zhao Jue had asked him earlier, he hadn't given an evaluation either...

"Well..." Kalin imitated Zhao Jue's expression when he was walking in his garden and happened to step in dog poo, forcing out a few words: "Misleading the students..."

Hearing that, Zhan Zhao actually felt somewhat reassured, as his thoughts were similar to Zhao Jue's

"I think things might not be looking too good," Kalin was probably still uneasy because of what had happened with Tian Ming, so she told Issel about it. Issel had an acquaintance at T Hospital, so he managed to get hold of the monitoring software from Xiaoxue's phone and installed it on his own to see exactly what kind of treatment method this was.

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at Issel – So you've been monitoring for quite a few days now... have you discovered anything?

Issel clicked his tongue. "This chat set-up, at first, I thought it was the experiment group trying to manipulate Xiaoxue. The whole simulated chat environment was that of a cheating man, constantly provoking Xiaoxue... but gradually..."

At this point, Issel became a little less certain. "I don't understand anything about psychology, but I feel that although Xiaoxue's words and behaviour are somewhat deranged, like a hysterical state... I still feel she's a bit dangerous. In the conversation, the dominant side seems to be Xiaoxue rather than the experimental team."

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly, reached out for the phone, and began to examine the chat record in detail.

Bai Yutang, however, asked Issel, "No matter what, she's still locked up in prison. Although T Hospital belongs to the psychiatric ward, its security is on a par with a special prison. There shouldn't be any problems, right..."

Issel couldn't be sure either, but his radar told him the situation looked grim...

Meanwhile, after Zhan Zhao had set aside his gossipy filter and read through all the conversations from a professional perspective, his expression also grew a little unsettled.

"What do you think?" Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin and said, "Indeed, Xiaoxue appears to be the one being driven crazy, but in reality, she's the one controlling the conversation..."

......

At the same time, outside the entrance of T Hospital.

The main door opened, and Zhao Jue walked out with his head lowered, as though deep in thought.

When he looked up, he saw a familiar car parked ahead. Bai Ye was standing by the car, watching him.

Zhao Jue stared at him for a while, then began patting at the pockets of his clothes and pants.

Bai Ye opened the car door, gesturing for him to get in.

Zhao Jue reluctantly walked over and got into the car.

Bai Ye drove him back, but didn't ask what he had been doing there.

This area was rather remote, and once they drove out, there was a long stretch of forest road.

Bai Ye asked Zhao Jue if he had eaten. There was food in the back seat.

Zhao Jue glanced back, saw takeout boxes from the food city, reached out, and opened one.

Just then, a flash of light appeared ahead as a car came towards them in the opposite direction, driving against the flow of traffic in the other lane.

The road was lined by woods, with T Hospital being the only place at the far end, so the car could only have been heading to the hospital.

Though it was only a glimpse, Bai Ye saw that there were four young people in the car, all dressed in white coats, presumably doctors from that hospital.

Zhao Jue, who had just been looking down to take a seafood and fruit wrap from the box, hadn't noticed the car. Now he lifted his head, biting into the wrap, and said to Bai Ye, "Don't go home yet."

"Where do you want to go?" Bai Ye asked, stopping at the red light ahead.

Just then, the wail of sirens rang out.

Both Bai Ye and Zhao Jue looked up to see two fire engines speeding past in the other lane.

Zhao Jue turned to stare at the departing fire engines, then suddenly said, "Turn around!"

‿︵‿︵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 26, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 26, 2025 by Angel