S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 127

Special Files – Collector 12 – Unintelligible Message

---

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both speechless as they watched Wu Wen sobbing and sniffling before them, claiming that he had been "targeted" and that the situation was dire.

Especially Zhan Zhao, as Professor Wu Wen had always come across as rather aloof. Although his manner was showy and his academic ability average, he carried himself with great airs and had a long-standing reputation. In short, his status in the academic world was quite high.

Who would have thought that his true state would turn out to be like this?

Bai Yutang also felt unsure whether this man was a good professor, but one thing was certain, he was a good actor. His acting skills were better than Xu Lie's, inside and outside the cabin, he was practically two different people!

Zhao Jue looked at Wu Wen in disgust and told him to stop crying and talk sense, What good will crying do!

Wu Wen's situation could be summed up in one sentence – he was scared!

Wu Wen's original intention had simply been to arrange an assessment for his students, targeting several patients in the T Zone.

Everything had been perfectly normal at first, but then, out of nowhere, he began receiving emails. Afterwards, the patients they had been studying started dying, and step by step, things had developed to this point...

This latest email was rather puzzling. He had been lured to stay at the holiday cabin by the email, and the new one was about the very cabin they were staying in, yet there was no research subject in that cabin.

Wu Wen was afraid that he or one of his students might die next, and that would truly be a disaster.

Zhao Jue told Wu Wen to show Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang the photo that had come from scanning the electronic ticket on his phone.

The two leaned in together to study it.

"Is it related to that previous suicide case of the couple?" Zhan Zhao held the phone and looked at it. His question was the same as Issel's, "Why are they lying face down?"

Bai Yutang also found the photo inexplicably eerie.

In the end, the phone was passed into the hands of the "professional."

Gongsun glanced at the photo and said, "Those two are dummies."

"Dummies?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at Gongsun.

Gongsun enlarged the photo for a closer look, but since it was taken from surveillance footage, the image quality wasn't very clear.

"Judging by my experience of examining countless corpses," Gongsun shook his head, "these should be two human mannequins, plastic ones."

"Plastic mannequins?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked at Wu Wen – Do you have any ideas?

Wu Wen was obviously also confused.

Zhao Jue asked impatiently, "Have you offended anyone recently? Think carefully! Has anything particularly strange happened?"

"Er..." Wu Wen scratched his head and thought hard for a moment. "That day, in the school cafeteria, I ran into a very strange girl. I don't know if that counts."

Zhan Zhao told him to explain in detail.

"I was having lunch in the cafeteria that day when a girl suddenly came over holding one of my books and asked me to sign it," Wu Wen said. "After I'd signed my name and handed the book back to her, she asked me, 'Professor, have you ever been to the collection hall?'"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looked puzzled – What collection hall?

"I was a bit confused at the time too, but there are plenty of museums and art galleries near the university, as well as some small private exhibition halls. There's that art park over there, isn't there?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang remembered, it was the same park they had visited before, where they'd even won a prize in one of the halls.

"She told me to go and have a look, she said she'd just been there the day before, and that I was in it too." Wu Wen sighed. "The girl was rather strange. She looked perfectly normal at first glance, but after watching her for a moment, something just felt off. I couldn't quite say what it was, but it was unsettling."

"What did she mean by saying you were in it?" Bai Yutang asked. "Did she mean you were visiting the hall, or that you were one of the exhibits?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both nodded – The Chinese language truly is profound.

"I didn't get it either, so I asked what kind of collection hall it was." Wu Wen grew visibly annoyed as he spoke. "Who could've known she'd suddenly snort with laughter and say, 'The Hall of Fools'... and then she just ran off."

"Hahahaha..." Zhao Jue got the joke immediately and burst out laughing.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang gave Wu Wen a sympathetic look – So the girl deliberately came to make fun of you?

Wu Wen clicked his tongue and said. "How rude!"

Gongsun also felt it was a bit too much. How could a student behave that way towards a teacher?

"Didn't you check which class she was from later?" Zhan Zhao asked curiously. It shouldn't have been difficult to find out.

"I was quite angry at the time, but later on, I got busy and forgot about it. Besides, I never saw her on campus again... But whenever I think back to it, she just feels strange." Wu Wen recalled, and goosebumps seemed to rise on his arms as he rubbed them. "It gave me the creeps."

......

Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen had been sent out by Bai Ye to chop wood.

The two handsome men headed out with axes in hand, and after only a few steps, they ran into two others who were out with babies.

Xu Lie and Lan Qi were each carrying a baby in a sling across their chests, taking the little ones for a walk.

The pair were holding two cups of lemon tea, grimacing as they drank. Xu Lie was absolutely hooked, he loved it so much that he thought he could open a shop selling it. This tea was that addictive.

Lan Qi and Hao Ling's baby was nicknamed Jiajia and was a little older than Xiao Yumi. The child had perfectly inherited Hao Ling's high intelligence, she could recognise people and talk a bit, and when she saw Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen, she began babbling happily to them.

But the baby's pronunciation was quite unique, she had even invented her own baby language. She called Bai Jintang "Bajichang" and Zhao Zhen "Jiaji", as if she were speaking a foreign language.

Xiao Yumi had just finished her bottle, and when she saw the two men, she waved her little hands too.

Lan Qi and Xu Lie looked at the two men holding axes in confusion, uncertain what exactly they were planning to do.

Bai Jintang said helplessly, "We're going to chop firewood."

"Oh..." Xu Lie and Lan Qi took it in stride. Since they were already out walking with the babies, they decided to tag along and watch the two chop firewood.

When they passed the cabin opposite, Bai Jintang peered inside, hoping to catch the twins and get them to help, but the twins weren't there...

Bai Jintang thought that maybe they should just drive down to the supermarket at the foot of the mountain and buy a few boxes of charcoal instead. If that didn't work, even ordering takeout would be better than chopping firewood themselves.

Although none of them were particularly keen, once they left the holiday area, both sides of the road were lined with forest. The four found a small path and went into the woods.

The outer part of the forest mostly consisted of tall trees that weren't easy to cut. Of course, they weren't about to chop down a towering tree for firewood, so the group went deeper in to find something easier to cut.

Soon, the four reached an area filled with dead trees and branches.

The four split up the work: Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen would chop down a dead tree, while Lan Qi and Xu Lie collected dry branches and tied them together with vines.

Lan Qi's baby pointed at the pile of dry branches and insisted it was, "Underpants!"

No matter how many times Lan Qi corrected her, saying it was "dry branches," the baby stubbornly insisted on "underpants."

Xu Lie found chopping wood rather fun. Bai Jintang held Xiao Yumi for him while he took the axe and joined Zhao Zhen in cutting down a dead tree.

Noticing that Xiao Yumi kept tilting her head to look upwards, Bai Jintang followed her gaze and saw a large tree nearby with a bird's nest in it...

Bai Jintang stared at it for a while and noticed that, about halfway up the trunk, at roughly a person's height, there were some words carved into the bark, along with an arrow.

Looking closely, he saw the characters "collection hall" and an arrow pointing west.

Bai Jintang glanced around, it was all barren hills and wild forest. How could there possibly be an exhibition hall here?

Lan Qi, having gathered a pile of "underpants," went to look for vines. There happened to be a section of vine on the very tree Bai Jintang had been examining, so Lan Qi went over, tugged at it a few times, snapped off a piece, and used it to tie the bundle of wood.

To make crouching easier, Lan Qi handed Jiajia over to Bai Jintang.

Big Brother Bai now had a baby in each arm. He tested their weight and thought both were eating well – Heavier than dumbbells!

At that moment, Jiajia pointed at the tree with the carvings and said, "Bengbengba."

Bai Jintang didn't understand, but he guessed that the child had simply given the tree a name.

Zhao Zhen and Xu Lie had cut down a large section of the dead tree and were carrying it between them. Lan Qi had picked up two big bundles of dry branches, and feeling that it was enough, they all decided to head back.

As they walked back, Xu Lie picked up his phone to call his assistant, only to find there was no signal.

"We're not even that far from the city, how can there be no signal?"

After complaining, Xu Lie realised no one had responded. Feeling puzzled, he looked up.

He saw that Bai Jintang, Zhao Zhen, and Lan Qi were all standing silently, surveying their surroundings.

"What's wrong?" Xu Lie asked.

Lan Qi frowned slightly. "We've been walking for five minutes, and we didn't walk for long when we came in just now... We should have seen the path by now."

"This place looks kind of familiar," Zhao Zhen reminded them.

Bai Jintang tilted his head and motioned towards the tree beside him.

The others followed Big Brother Bai's gaze. On one large tree hung a half-torn vine, and carved into the trunk were the words "collection hall" and an arrow pointing west.

"Are we back where we started?"

Once Xu Lie realised what was going on, he found it unbelievable. They'd simply retraced their steps, how could they have looped back? It didn't make sense... it wasn't even that far to begin with.

With plenty of outdoor survival experience, Lan Qi advised, "Let's not move for now, we should figure out our bearings first."

Just then, Xu Lie suddenly jumped up with a startled "Holy crap!"

Everyone followed his gaze towards a patch of grass nearby, there was someone there...

It looked like a woman with long, black, straight hair, wearing a white dress, was standing there.

Big Brother Bai silently nodded – Has a corpse appeared?

Lan Qi thought the position seemed a bit off. Is the woman sitting in the grass?

Zhao Zhen, however, thought, Surely not? Has Big Brother's "effect" appeared already? That's a bit sudden... Could it be that we've gotten lost because we ran into a ghost wall? That would be a brand-new kind of buff!

Lan Qi took a few steps forward and glanced over, then his expression went blank. He reached out, grabbed the figure, and gave it a tug...

The "woman" toppled over... The long black wig fell off, revealing that the figure in the white dress was actually a battered plastic mannequin.

Lan Qi bent down again, tugged at the grass, and pulled out another plastic mannequin, a male mannequin dressed in pyjamas.

"Who's so immoral that they'd dump mannequins out here?" Lan Qi was a little speechless.

Seeing it wasn't anything suspicious, Xu Lie let out a sigh of relief and murmured, "Were these things here when we came earlier? Did we take the wrong path?"

Just then, Bai Jintang noticed that Xiao Jiajia in his arms was shouting at the tree, "Bengbengdu."

Big Brother Bai paused slightly, stared at the child, and asked, "Pa bengbengba?"

The baby blinked its big eyes, "Bengbengdu."

 Lan Qi, with his rich experience, came over and stared at the tree for a long while before saying, "It's not the same tree as before... it just looks very similar."

"This road also looks somewhat familiar, but something's not quite right." Zhao Zhen thought for a moment, gestured for everyone to pick up their things, then turned his back to the direction they had come from and said, "Go back."

Xu Lie went to lift the other end of the dead tree, intending to turn around and head back, but Zhao Zhen motioned for him not to turn. "Walk backwards."

Everyone looked at one another, but they all understood what Zhao Zhen meant.

There was something strange about this forest.

If the entrance where they had come in was considered the starting point, then the place where they had cut the tree would be the endpoint.

The route they took from the starting point to the endpoint was route A.

When walking back from the endpoint to the starting point, they should have been taking the same route A, just in reverse.

Although it was the same path, in such a dense forest one still had to rely on distinctive landmarks to recognise the way. For example, uniquely shaped trees or rocks.

If, on their return, any of those memory markers had been moved or turned around, they might have been led onto another path, route B.

On route B, if there was a replica of the endpoint, like that tree with the carved characters, it would create the illusion that they had gone in circles and hit an invisible wall, trapped by the forest's trick.

If they were to turn around again and go back the other way, they might mistakenly step from route B onto route C, and then they would truly be lost.

Fortunately, Lan Qi's baby had a "special gift". For some reason, the child immediately recognised that these were two completely different trees, bengbengba and bengbengdu.

As an expert in "trickery", Zhao Zhen felt the only solution was not to turn back, but to reverse their steps.

By eliminating those changeable memory markers and mentally replaying their short-term memory in reverse, ignoring the landmarks and retracing their path exactly, the great magician recalled every move they had made, even the number of steps, perfectly reconstructing them and successfully leading everyone back to the original tree's location.

Then, after turning around once more, they walked out of the forest with their backs to its entrance... and, smoothly enough, they walked out of the forest within a few minutes.

Once they exited the forest and reached the road, the group turned back to look at it.

Bai Jintang asked Zhao Zhen, "This... should be man-made, right?"

Zhao Zhen nodded. "I don't know who was so idle to build a maze inside."

"I'm more concerned about this vine," Lan Qi gestured at the vine he was carrying, the one they had used to tie the dead branches together. "Is it just a coincidence? The vine on the second tree was broken in exactly the same way as the one I broke off the first tree."

Xu Lie frowned. "Is someone following us?"

Brother Bai didn't think so. He hadn't heard any other people moving around in the forest just now...

Zhao Zhen thought for a moment and lowered his voice. "Didn't they say this resort was haunted..."

"Haunted?" Xu Lie and Lan Qi, both dads, raised their voices an octave.

Whether it was because the sky had grown overcast or not, the wind blowing through the forest suddenly felt chill and eerie.

The four woodcutters carried their firewood and held the babies, and hurriedly made their way out...

When the four people had gone some distance, a rustling sound suddenly came from the forest...

As Big Brother Bai walked ahead, he heard Jiajia, who was lying on his shoulder, looking behind them, call out, "Maidudu."

Bai Jintang looked back. There was nothing behind them, but after a while, the sound of an approaching car reached their ears.

Before long, they saw the twins driving back.

Through the car window, Xiao Ding spotted the wood-chopping group and laughed so hard he pounded the window.

After throwing the firewood into the trunk, Bai Jintang returned the two babies to Lan Qi and Xu Lie.

Brother Bai, still curious, asked Lan Qi, "Is the car maidudu?"

Lan Qi tilted his head. "No, the car's dididudu."

Brother Bai looked puzzled. "Then the twins are maidudu?"

Lan Qi pointed towards the twins who were unloading the firewood, and the baby called them, "Dali Dili."

Brother Bai was completely baffled. What kind of linguistic system is this?

Lan Qi only shrugged, he and the baby's mom hadn't fully figured it out either.

"Could it just be random babbling?" Xu Lie asked.

"Not really," Lan Qi shook his head, pointing at Bai Jintang.

The baby continued, calling out "Bajichang." Then to Zhao Zhen, "Jiaji," and to Xu Lie, "Huyi."

The three looked at each other. It really was consistent, the baby always called them that, so it wasn't random nonsense. Could there really be some kind of language system behind it?

"Then what does maidudu mean?" Bai Jintang, for some reason, felt particularly interested in this one.

Lan Qi wasn't sure either. He said he'd never heard that word before, the baby probably saw something new and came up with it.

Bai Jintang looked up, glancing in the direction they'd just come from. There was nothing on the road behind them. What new thing could there have been?

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter

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: November 3, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 26, 2025 by Angel