S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 132

Special Files – Collector 17 – Night Terrors

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It wasn't easy for the SCI team to take a holiday, they had run all the way up into the mountains, yet somehow the cases still followed them.

In the blink of an eye, it was already half past nine in the evening. After taking a shower, Bai Yutang went downstairs and saw Zhan Zhao and Gongsun each holding a bucket of fried chicken, sitting on the sofa watching a video.

In the next room, Big Brother Bai had a pile of documents on his lap, while Zhao Jue sat inside the playpen, looking at his phone as he gently rocked Xiao Yumi's cradle.

Jiajia was beside him, building blocks, and Lisbon was sleeping pressed against the playpen, occasionally flicking its tail to swat away mosquitoes for the babies.

As Bai Yutang dried his hair, he shook his head. If not for the different sofa, it felt exactly like being at home.

After coming downstairs, Bai Yutang first glanced at the surveillance feed on the table.

For safety's sake, they had installed a camera in the living room of the students' cabin next door.

At that hour, the students were all gathered around the coffee table in the living room doing homework. A large platter of fried chicken, apparently the same kind as the one Zhan Zhao was holding, sat on the table, and each of them had a big cup of cola in hand.

Bai Yutang shook his head again. Having midnight snacks this unhealthy was a bit much...

After checking and confirming everything was fine, Bai Yutang walked over to the sofa and asked Bai Jintang, "Where's everyone else?"

His older brother put down the endless stack of documents, took a packet of cigarettes from the table, stood up, and gestured outside. "Having a party across the way."

With that, Big Brother Bai went outside for a smoke.

Bai Yutang sat down on the sofa to continue drying his hair, watching Zhan Zhao and Gongsun grin mischievously at the tablet in front of them.

......

Bai Jintang stood in the open space in front of the holiday cabin, lighting a cigarette. As he smoked, he looked around.

Ahead was the little cabin where Xu Lie and the others were staying, it was brightly lit. The soundproofing seemed decent, though faint music could be heard, but it wasn't disturbing anyone.

The second floor of the neighbouring cabin was dark, while the lights were still on downstairs.

He walked to the doorway and glanced around. There weren't many street lamps along the road, and the light was dim.

As Big Brother Bai stood there spacing out, he suddenly heard a soft thud behind him. Turning back, he saw a cat jump down from the courtyard wall and stroll lazily along the base of it.

When the cat came close to Bai Jintang, it sat down and gave a quiet meow.

Bai Jintang stubbed out his cigarette, went back inside, grabbed a tray and took two pieces of fried chicken from Gongsun. He removed the bones, placed the meat on the tray, and set it down beside the cat outside.

The cat wasn't afraid of people. It went over, sniffed the meat, then sat there and began to eat.

Bai Jintang sat on the steps not far away, watching the cat eat.

It was quite a chubby one, an orange tabby...

Bai Jintang stared at it for a moment, rubbed his chin, and leaned closer to have a look... There was a red mark on the cat's hind leg, could it have been injured?

After finishing the meat, the cat licked its paw, then strolled away leisurely, even leaping up onto the courtyard wall, it didn't look injured at all.

Big Brother Bai sighed, thinking he was being overly suspicious, probably influenced by his family...

Bai Yutang had finished drying his hair and went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. When he opened the fridge, he happened to glance out the window and saw Bai Jintang on the porch, head lowered, staring at the ground as though lost in thought.

With the bottle in hand, Bai Yutang drank as he walked towards the door. "Big Brother?"

Bai Jintang turned his head, looked at him, and gestured for him to come over.

Bai Yutang walked closer, and Bai Jintang pointed to the ground.

There was a plate on the ground, and beside it was a small red stain, along with a trail of tiny paw prints shaped like plum blossoms, also red...

Bai Yutang stared for a while, then took out his phone, switched on the flashlight, and crouched down to examine the area. Following the footprints with the light, he traced them forward... The prints disappeared at the wall.

Bai Jintang pointed towards the rooftop, indicating that the cat had run off along the courtyard wall.

"Is the cat injured?" Bai Yutang asked.

Big Brother Bai shook his head, It didn't look like it.

Bai Yutang scratched his head. "Maybe it just caught a mouse?"

Bai Jintang shrugged – Judging by how much it ate, it didn't seem like it had just had a meal.

Bai Yutang sighed, making one last attempt to reason it out. "Could it be red paint?"

"That's easy enough to check." Big Brother Bai took out his phone.

Inside the house, Gongsun, who had been watching videos with Zhan Zhao, heard his phone ring. When he saw it was Bai Jintang calling, he looked towards the door in confusion.

He ran outside with the phone, only to find Bai Jintang and Bai Yutang both beckoning to him.

Summoned over, Gongsun saw the line of cat paw prints.

He crouched down, pinched a bit of the red soil between his fingers, rubbed it, and brought it close to his nose to smell.

The forensic doctor nodded. "Mm, blood, very fresh."

"Human blood?" Bai Yutang asked.

Gongsun looked a little exasperated. He took out his mobile phone and shone the flashlight in the direction of the footprints. "How should I know, you can't tell human from pig blood just by looking at it..."

With that, Gongsun followed the trail of footprints towards the wall, where an RV happened to be parked nearby.

He went into the vehicle, took out a ladder, leaned it against the wall, and climbed up to look over the other side.

Beside their holiday cabin was a road, and across it stood the walled courtyard of another cabin.

The road was pitch-black, with only a single streetlamp at the corner, but it seemed to be broken.

On the wall behind that streetlamp, a cat was strolling leisurely away into the distance.

Gongsun observed the cat, its tail held upright. Judging by its gait, it didn't seem injured.

Gongsun tilted his head, not quite sure why he was still standing there, and was about to put his phone away and head back... but as the beam from his phone swept past, he froze.

There, in the pitch-black corner beneath the broken street lamp, sat a figure.

Gongsun quickly lifted his phone to shine the light.

The phone flashlight didn't reach far, but within its range, there really was a person sitting on the ground, head bowed, leaning against the wall. A cascade of long black hair fell down both sides of the neck and chest, and on the white clothing there was a dark, spreading stain.

Gongsun immediately pointed towards the corner and shouted back at Bai Yutang, "Person! There's a dead person!"

Bai Yutang instinctively bolted outside, bewildered as he ran. This doesn't make sense... How could there just suddenly be a corpse outside?

Big Brother Bai walked out after him.

The commotion attracted Zhan Zhao from the room where he'd been watching a live stream. As he reached the door, he heard Gongsun saying, "There's a dead person."

Bai Yutang dashed to the next intersection and switched on his phone's flashlight.

But the road was completely empty on both sides. When he looked up, he saw Gongsun standing on the ladder inside the courtyard.

Gongsun stared back at him, utterly bewildered...

"Strange..." Gongsun muttered, sweeping his phone's flashlight towards the streetlamp again. He could have sworn he'd seen it clearly just now, but after turning back for only a moment to speak, the person sitting there had vanished.

He hadn't heard any sound or seen any movement. How could they just disappear like that?

Bai Jintang also walked to the intersection, glancing up at Gongsun, then down at Bai Yutang crouched beneath the streetlamp – What's going on?

At that moment, Zhan Zhao ran to the RV, grabbed a rechargeable work light, and handed it up to Gongsun on the ladder.

Gongsun switched it on and set it on top of the wall, instantly illuminating the intersection.

Bai Yutang crouched under the streetlamp.

Though the person Gongsun described was nowhere to be seen, there were cat paw prints on the ground, two rows of them... facing each other.

Bai Yutang took a couple of steps back, then leapt up onto the wall. There he saw another trail of paw prints leading off into the distance, their colour already fading...

On the wall of the cabin next door, there were only paw prints leading away, none coming back.

Meanwhile, the cat paw prints on the ground beneath the streetlamp were darker in colour, heading towards their own holiday cabin...

From the footprints, it could be deduced that the cat had picked up the bloodstains here, walked over to their cabin, eaten the food Big Brother Bai had put out, and then returned the same way.

In other words, the cat had brushed against the blood right under the streetlamp... yet there was no visible blood nearby.

Bai Yutang was puzzled, though clearly not as bewildered as Gongsun up on the ladder. Gongsun climbed down the ladder, his expression serious, stood still for a moment in thought, then asked Zhan Zhao, "What did we have for dinner?"

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment. "Er... steak, fried rice, fried chicken, fried prawns, lemon tea, mushroom soup..."

"Mushroom soup?!" Gongsun pushed up his glasses sharply. "What kind of mushrooms?"

Zhan Zhao tilted his head – Mushrooms?

Gongsun spun around and ran to Bai Jintang's car, opened the trunk, pulled out a medical kit, and, after taking out his tools, rolled up his sleeve, ready to draw his own blood.

"Hey!" Zhan Zhao hurried to stop him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm seeing things!" Gongsun pointed to his eyes. "I need to test my blood to see if I've been poisoned..."

"What did you see?" Zhan Zhao took the disinfectant swab and syringe from Gongsun's hand and put them back into the case.

Gongsun looked at his watch and measured his pulse, "I saw a woman sitting under the streetlamp."

That made Zhan Zhao laugh. "What woman? A long-haired one in a white dress, with her hair covering her face?"

Gongsun looked up in surprise. "You saw her too?"

Zhan Zhao blinked.

Gongsun tore open another disinfectant swab, grabbed Zhan Zhao's arm, and was about to draw his blood. "So it is a collective poisoning incident!"

Zhan Zhao quickly yanked his arm back. "Not!"

"Exactly!" Gongsun kept tugging at him. "It was gone in an instant!"

Zhan Zhao struggled to pull his arm free, glaring at the syringe in Gongsun's hand. "Put that down! I said I didn't see anything!"

Gongsun narrowed his eyes – You clearly said you did just now! Don't be afraid! Just one vial, two samples will make the analysis more accurate!

Zhan Zhao waved his hand dismissively. "Isn't this place supposed to be haunted? The female ghost is exactly that type, long black hair and a white dress!"

Hearing this, Gongsun froze.

Just then, Bai Yutang and Bai Jintang returned.

The two stood silently, watching the scene, while Gongsun, still holding the "weapon", was completely dazed.

Zhan Zhao hurriedly hid behind Bai Yutang.

Bai Jintang reached out and took the syringe from Gongsun's hand.

Gongsun was still in a dazed state, muttering, "A female ghost? So I really did see a ghost just now?"

Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang, "Was there a ghost outside?"

Bai Yutang was just about to explain what he'd seen when a shrill scream suddenly echoed through the night. "Aaaahhhhhh!"

Gongsun snapped out of it. "That scream sounds a bit familiar."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both nodded – Yes, it was the same scream Zhao Hu usually made whenever he accidentally wandered into the forensics lab...

At that thought, the two exchanged a look.

Zhao Jue, who had just come out to throw away a diaper, also heard the noise. Pinching his nose with one hand and holding the diaper in the other, he asked, "Was that the little husky from your police station barking?"

"Hu Zi?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang immediately dashed outside.

They'd just reached the doorway when two figures came charging straight at them, nearly colliding.

Bai Yutang quickly grabbed Zhan Zhao and pulled him aside. Zhao Hu stumbled and almost fell as he rushed in, followed by Ma Han, who kept glancing over his shoulder as he ran.

"What are you two doing?" Bai Yutang looked at the two of them, as if something had been chasing them. He looked out at the road... but it was pitch dark, nothing visible at all.

"Ghost! Female ghost!" Zhao Hu kept pointing behind him.

Bai Yutang frowned and asked Ma Han, "You saw it too?"

Ma Han nodded.

The two of them had been hanging out next door when Zhao Hu said he needed to use the toilet, but both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were occupied, and even the doorway had a queue.

So Zhao Hu and Ma Han decided to come over to borrow the one here.

They followed the small path outside, a distance of just over a hundred metres.

Zhao Hu had drunk two cocktails and was a bit tipsy. He spun around at one point and found that everything looked the same in every direction, he couldn't tell east from west.

Then Ma Han heard what sounded like a car approaching from behind, so he pulled Zhao Hu over to the side of the road.

Looking back, he did see a car coming, but it turned at the intersection further back.

Since it wasn't heading their way, the two turned back and carried on walking forward...

But just as they turned around, they saw someone sitting at the intersection ahead.

A woman with long hair, a white dress, and covered in blood was sitting under the streetlamp.

The two of them were startled when they suddenly saw this. Zhao Hu sobered up from his drunkenness and said, "Fucking hell..."

Just then, the streetlight flickered... It went dark, then lit up again. In the blink of an eye, that person was gone.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han froze for a moment before rushing forward to check.

But the roadside was completely empty, nothing there at all. Just as they were puzzled, Hu Zi suddenly felt something behind him. He turned around... and saw a woman standing right behind him, raising her head...

"Waaahhh..."

Immediately after that, a scream pierced the night. Ma Han turned as well, but before he could even figure out what was happening, Zhao Hu had already grabbed him and was dragging him away at a full sprint.

Bai Yutang was a little confused. He was rather inclined to agree with Gongsun's earlier thought – Was there something wrong with that mushroom soup we had? Were the mushrooms store-bought, or ones Uncle Chopsticks had gone up the mountain to pick himself?

Zhan Zhao kept looking at the road. "So it's true, walk the night road too often, and you'll run into something. Hu Zi, what did the ghost look like?"

Zhao Hu got goosebumps all over his body. "No facial features, no...the facial features didn't have colour... Er, like one of those plastic mannequins in a shop window!"

Zhan Zhao was slightly stunned. "Why does this plot sound so familiar?"

Bai Yutang frowned as well. "Isn't that straight out of that TV drama?"

Zhao Hu and Ma Han thought about it, then Ma Han nodded. "Now that you mention it..."

Zhao Hu grimaced. "Can someone please give me an explanation?!"

As they spoke, both of them felt a "keen" gaze fixed on them. They turned around to see Gongsun waving a syringe at them. "Come on, let's draw a tube of blood to make sure!"

Zhao Hu and Ma Han exchanged a look, rolled up their sleeves, and stepped forward.

Just then, Zhao Jue, still pinching his nose and holding a used diaper, turned his head from where he stood by the garbage bins outside and waved at them. "Ai, is this the female ghost you two ran into?"

Everyone froze. Bai Yutang yanked Zhao Hu and Ma Han back, and they all went over to the garbage bins. Following Zhao Jue's gaze, they looked inside...

In the green garbage bin, they saw a life-sized plastic mannequin wearing a white dress and a long black wig, and there was a large patch of red "blood" from its neck down to its chest.

Bai Jintang asked Gongsun to have a look too.

Gongsun walked over to the garbage bin and stopped dead in his tracks.

Hu Zi and Ma Han both nodded at Bai Yutang, confirming, That's her!

After standing for a while, Zhao Jue, who was still holding the diaper, spoke first, "Did someone mix up the garbage sorting? Pretty sure ghosts don't go in the food waste bin..."

‿︵‿︵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: November 12, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 27, 2025 by Angel