S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 122

Special Files – Collector 07 – Block House

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The next morning, Zhan Zhao woke up from a "nightmare."

He had dreamt that he and Bai Yutang were camping on the African savannah, and then a herd of migrating wildebeest trampled their tent...

Zhan Zhao felt as if he had been trampled by a whole herd of large hoofed animals... his chest was tight, he was short of breath, and struggling to breathe...

Zhan Zhao groggily opened his eyes, and the first thing that entered his sight was a twitching, furry, huge tail!

He wanted to reach out and brush it away, but found that he couldn't lift his arm. But it didn't feel like sleep paralysis, since he was already awake...

After straining twice to raise his arm, he finally managed to shake off the furry thing clinging to him, then reached out and lifted the "heavy object" pressing on his chest, only to hear a muffled meow.

Luban turned his head to look at the now-awake Zhan Zhao. With a swish of his big tail, he swept a faceful of fur across Zhan Zhao.

Placing Luban to one side, Zhan Zhao sat up, with several kittens rolling off his body. Lilia and the little lion were pinning down his legs, while a few kittens were still kneading away on his stomach.

Zhan Zhao felt pins and needles in his arms and legs and even a crick in his neck. He rolled his head, glanced around, and found that Bai Yutang wasn't in the tent. The flap was left slightly open, and he was surrounded entirely by cats.

Crawling out of the tent, Zhan Zhao saw someone walking past. Looking up, he saw it was Zhao Jue holding a breakfast tray.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, then yawned at the same time.

Zhan Zhao rubbed his bedhead, stood up, and stretched lazily. Glancing at Zhao Jue's tray, he asked curiously, "What's that?"

Zhao Jue jerked his chin towards the back, then went to sit under a parasol in the front garden to eat his breakfast.

Zhan Zhao saw a grill set up in the garden ahead, Bai Ye and Bai Yutang were barbecuing.

Bai Chi came out carrying a few glasses of milk, handed one to Zhao Jue, and asked Zhan Zhao, "Brother, you're awake?"

"What time is it?" Zhan Zhao looked up at the sky.

"Eight o'clock." Bai Chi said it was still early, and they would have to pack up the things for camping later.

"Camping?" Zhan Zhao was still in a fog. "What camping?"

Bai Chi put down the tray, pulled out a wet wipe, and slapped it on Zhan Zhao's face.

Zhan Zhao shivered from the cold and woke up from his sleepy state of "who am I, where am I?"

The thought of spending his rare holiday hiking, camping, and feeding mosquitoes made him grimace in disgust.

Bai Yutang pointed towards the villa, signalling him to go wash up.

When Zhan Zhao entered the living room, he saw Issel standing by the table with a phone in his hand.

Issel was frowning at the screen while holding a bottle of barbecue sauce, his expression faintly puzzled.

When Zhan Zhao saw the phone, his memory of the previous night came back. He remembered that Issel was keeping an eye on Xiaoxue, so he asked him, "How's it going?"

"Er..." Issel looked up and saw Zhan Zhao, feeling that he had arrived just in time, and said, "It's a bit strange!"

"What's strange?" Zhan Zhao noticed some fruits on the table he hadn't seen before, so he picked one up to examine.

"From last night until now, there hasn't been a single message." Issel touched his chest, still feeling that something wasn't right. "It's odd."

Zhan Zhao took the phone and checked. Sure enough, the whole night until now, there wasn't a single message.

"Because of the holiday?" Zhan Zhao wondered if those students were also on break. "Speaking of those students, aren't they also going camping? Maybe they've temporarily suspended the experiment?"

Issel frowned. "Even if the students are silent, there's no reason why Xiaoxue wouldn't send a single message. She's been bombarding me with long strings of texts lately, just like your editor."

Zhan Zhao froze for a second – My editor?

Issel gestured at the phone lying on the table. "Wow, that vibration frequency, early this morning it started going ding ding ding and hasn't stopped since!"

Zhan Zhao hurried over, picked up his phone and took a glance, then let out a silent sigh – My editor has gone crazy.

Scratching his head, Zhan Zhao did a bit of self-reflection and admitted he had indeed gone a little too far. He took out his laptop, planning to write a bit while they were camping later.

Looking down, he noticed several maps laid out on the coffee table. Curious, he picked them up. A route was marked on them, with all sorts of little flags drawn.

Zhan Zhao didn't look too closely. He called out to Issel, who was heading out, asking him to tell Yutang to roast a corn cob for him, then ran off to wash up.

When he came out after washing his face, Bai Chi was scribbling on the map downstairs, while Bai Yutang stood nearby with a tray, head lowered as he worked on a real-time map on a tablet.

Zhan Zhao came down, spotted a roasted corn cob on the tray, and grabbed it to eat.

"This won't work, there's a blind spot here." Bai Yutang pointed at the map as he discussed it with Bai Chi.

Curious, Zhan Zhao asked him, "What are you guys doing?"

Bai Yutang said the twins were organising an off-road race, so they needed to set up surveillance, mainly to prevent cheating.

"Cheating in an off-road race?"

"Like taking shortcuts." Bai Yutang handed Zhan Zhao a cup of coffee.

"Taking shortcuts in the mountains, wouldn't that be dangerous?" Zhan Zhao shook his head as he held the coffee – Such a huge risk.

"The twins said that as long as nobody dies in the race, it counts as a complete success!" Xiao Bai Chi drew a few circles in a row on the map, then stopped, staring at a few small words on it.

"Block House..." Bai Chi asked, "Wasn't there a case there before?"

Bai Yutang also thought the name sounded familiar.

Zhan Zhao shook his head. "Not a case, a horror movie!"

"Horror movie?" Both Bai Chi and Bai Yutang looked at him.

"Wasn't there that faked video before?" Zhan Zhao took out his phone to search for a video he had seen. "There's an abandoned recycling depot in that area with loads of shipping containers piled up. Looking down from the mountain, they look like little blocks, so it was called Block House. A few short-video makers faked a clip showing piles of dismembered body parts inside the containers. It terrified people, with rumours spreading that there was a serial killer living nearby."

Bai Yutang and Bai Chi thought about it and seemed to recall the matter.

"Later, when things blew up, those people went to the police station to turn themselves in. They claimed it was just a horror movie they had staged, and that was how they muddled through it." Zhan Zhao waved his hand. "But all those containers and the fake corpses, plastic mannequins, were left piled up there, turning the place into a viral haunted attraction. You can find loads of videos of it online."

Still puzzled, Zhan Zhao asked them if they hadn't seen any. There were loads of videos like that...

Bai Chi explained that all the algorithms ever recommended to him were cat and dog videos. "Brother, if you're getting so many horror videos pushed at you, maybe you should reflect a bit?"

Zhan Zhao laughed, gnawing on his corn. After two bites, he suddenly froze, as though something had occurred to him, and hissed.

Bai Yutang and Bai Chi both looked at him.

"I think I..." Zhan Zhao remembered the suspicious advertising email he had seen when checking his inbox last night, the one with a photo, a QR code, and something about an electronic ticket for a Crime Cabin...

The background of the picture on the ticket looked familiar. Now that he thought of it, it resembled the backdrop of one of the short videos filmed at Block House.

Since container backdrops weren't exactly uncommon, Zhan Zhao wanted to open the image to double-check.

But strangely, after searching through his email again, he found that the email had disappeared.

Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin, recalling that he hadn't deleted any emails, only marked them all as read. So why had that message vanished?

Putting down his corn, Zhan Zhao sat and carefully searched through several inboxes, even checking the recently deleted folder, but the electronic ticket was nowhere to be found.

Zhan Zhao tilted his head, staring at the computer for a long while, then pulled out his phone and called Jiang Ping.

Jiang Ping, who was off duty, had played games all night with Fei Mu and was now having a "late-night snack," planning to sleep once he finished.

When Jiang Ping received a call from Zhan Zhao, he thought a case had suddenly cropped up.

Instead, Zhan Zhao opened his mouth and asked, "Can emails in your inbox just disappear on their own?"

After a few seconds processing the situation, Jiang Ping let out an "ah" and said, "Maybe the sender attached a read-and-destroy function to the email."

Zhan Zhao blinked. "That's possible? Shouldn't the recipient be the one to destroy the message after reading it? Why should someone else be able to delete things from my inbox?"

Jiang Ping couldn't really explain it clearly to Zhan Zhao, saying it was actually quite easy to do. The other party didn't necessarily need to be some computer expert, they could just be telecom scammers.

After hanging up, Zhan Zhao was left more unsettled than before...

"What email?" Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, a little confused.

"Ah!" Zhan Zhao immediately dragged Bai Yutang over. "Do you have any emails in your inbox? Open it and take a look!"

Bai Yutang's inbox was the type that hadn't been used for ten thousand years. When he opened it, there weren't even spam messages, only system emails.

Zhan Zhao searched around but couldn't find the electronic ticket. Scratching his head, he wondered if he had imagined it.

"Brother, what are you looking for? Was it a scam email?!" Bai Chi's attention was also drawn over.

Just as Bai Yutang was about to complain, the phone suddenly rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he raised it for Zhan Zhao to see. "It's Bao Sir!"

Zhan Zhao looked a bit put out – No way? Another case? More overtime?

Bai Yutang answered.

Bao Sir wasn't calling them in for overtime, though. He was just reminding them that the mountain area where they were going camping had lots of mosquitoes, and they mustn't forget to bring mosquito repellent.

Bai Yutang agreed, but on the other end, Bao Sir seemed hesitant, as though he had something else he hadn't said.

Suddenly, Zhan Zhao reached out his hand and asked Bai Yutang for the phone.

Bai Yutang handed the phone over to him. Zhan Zhao pressed the speaker button and asked Bao Sir directly if there was something else.

"Er... did Zhao Jue and Bai Ye go to T Hospital yesterday?"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang froze, puzzled – So Zhao Jue, who had been missing for most of the day yesterday, had actually gone to T Hospital?

"Why did he go to the hospital?" Zhan Zhao asked in confusion.

"It was just that his name happened to appear in the visitor log. He went to see a doctor..." Bao Sir paused. "But after he left, an inmate at T Hospital committed suicide last night."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang felt uneasy – Is it such a coincidence? Yesterday, Issel had just explained about Xiaoxue, and Zhao Jue had gone there, and afterwards, a prisoner committed suicide? But isn't that hospital more like a prison, how did she manage to kill herself?

"Which patient was it?" Zhan Zhao suddenly remembered what Issel had said just now, that Xiaoxue hadn't sent a single message since last night...

"A female prisoner called Xiaoxue," Bao Sir replied.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths dropped open, and they exchanged a glance – Surely not?

"How did she die?" Bai Yutang asked. "Are you certain it was suicide?"

"It was indeed suicide. The forensic doctor has already examined the body, and Xiaoxue's attending physician also said she had severe depression, with a strong suicidal tendency in the past. In addition, there's CCTV footage capturing the entire process of her suicide..."

"Did Zhao Jue ever meet her?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"No, he didn't. The doctor Zhao Jue went to see had nothing to do with Xiaoxue either. I just find it a bit coincidental." Bao Sir asked Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang to sound Zhao Jue out, to see whether there was any connection. If there wasn't, then at least the timing of the incident felt rather close, ask him if he had any clues.

Bao Sir had put it quite tactfully. Once he finished speaking, he hung up the phone.

Bai Yutang had just been about to ask Zhan Zhao how best to broach the subject when Zhan Zhao suddenly shot to his feet, ran outside, and found Zhao Jue drinking coffee under a parasol. "Did you go to T Hospital yesterday?"

Zhao Jue glanced at Zhan Zhao.

Bai Ye, who was grilling meat nearby, looked up.

Issel, hearing this, also came closer.

Zhan Zhao told him, "Xiaoxue committed suicide."

"What?!"

Issel and Karin were both startled.

The two were stunned for a moment and then turned to look at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue frowned at the three of them. "Who is Xiaoxue?"

The three narrowed their eyes at him, as if to say – Don't play games!

Zhao Jue put down his plate. "At T Hospital, all the patients are restrained to their beds at night when they sleep, how did she manage to kill herself?"

Zhan Zhao sent a message to ask Bao Sir.

Bao Sir sent him a photo and a video clip.

As soon as Zhan Zhao opened the photo, he froze...

There was a young woman hanging from a noose made by knotting bed sheets together, her body dangling like a broken doll. That posture, that "composition" of the scene in the frame, bore a subtle resemblance... to the photo on the electronic ticket.

‿︵‿︵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 29, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 26, 2025 by Angel