S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 133

Special Files – Collector 18 – Flash

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The SCI members stood in front of the large garbage bin at the door, staring blankly at the "female ghost" inside. They wanted to say something, but none of them knew what to say...

It wasn't until Zhao Jue asked what category of garbage the "female ghost" belonged to that everyone finally snapped out of their daze.

Zhao Hu was just about to reach out and poke at the ghost to see what "material" it was made of when, all of a sudden... a lion's roar came from inside the cabin.

Everyone froze.

Lisbon rarely ever roared. Apart from the occasional purring when he was stroked, the most he usually did was let out a soft growl when being affectionate.

But today's roar was unexpectedly "serious". With that roar, all the surrounding noise, the chirping of insects and birds, vanished instantly.

Following the lion's roar came the clear cry of a baby.

Everyone reacted immediately. Looking around, they realised that everyone was outside. Even Zhao Jue, who had been looking after the children, had stepped out to throw away a diaper. This meant that only the two babies and Lisbon were in the room.

If Lisbon was roaring, it meant there was danger...

Everyone hurried inside.

When they rushed into the room, they saw that Lisbon had already leapt over the playpen fence. His back was to them, facing the window at the back, and he was still growling lowly from his throat.

Bai Yutang quickly ran to the window to check.

Inside the playpen, Xiao Yumi in the cradle had clearly been startled awake by the roar and was now crying.

Jiajia was sitting beside the cradle, her little hand gently rocking it.

Zhao Jue hurried into the playpen, picked Xiao Yumi up, and patted her gently. Zhan Zhao followed him in and crouched down to check on Jiajia.

Jiajia wasn't crying. Her big eyes were wide open, staring in the direction of the window.

Zhan Zhao asked her softly, "Kaximagoo?"

Bai Jintang and Gongsun, who had also come to check on the babies, both looked at Zhan Zhao in confusion.

Jiajia pointed towards the window and said to him, "Maidudu."

Those three babyish words were no less powerful than Lisbon's roar just now... At once, everyone felt a chill rise from the soles of their feet.

Especially Big Brother Bai, he had spent the whole morning studying what "maidudu" meant. After analysing it with Zhan Zhao, their conclusion was that it was a moving plastic mannequin.

"Isn't that the female ghost by the door?" After Gongsun asked, he noticed Bai Yutang standing by the window, Zhao Hu at the doorway, and Ma Han running over to join Bai Yutang.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both turned to ask Ma Han at the door, "That female ghost..."

Ma Han also realised it might have been a ploy to lure them away, and spun round to run out.

Big Brother Bai followed him... but when they reached the bin, it was empty. The female ghost was gone.

"What are you doing?"

At that moment, a voice came from not far away.

Big Brother Bai turned round and saw Bai Ye walking over, carrying a toolbox. He and the two new kitchen recruits had been next door at the party, making drinks. The cocktail Hu Zi had drunk earlier had been one of theirs.

The cabin next door was still rather noisy, but Uncle Ye had been near the window and seemed to have heard a lion's roar from this direction just now. Sensing that something was subtly off, he had picked up his toolbox and come back first.

Sure enough, the moment he stepped outside, he felt that the neighbourhood was unusually quiet. The area was in the mountains, and it was normal to hear insects and birds at night. This level of quietness was strange.

After walking forward a few steps, the sounds gradually returned, and then he saw Ma Han and Bai Jintang hurrying out to check the garbage bin.

When the two of them turned and saw Bai Ye, they asked in unison whether he had seen a female ghost.

Bai Ye walked up to them, looking at the pair in confusion. After calmly analysing the situation, he thought – Ma Han had been drinking earlier, but Jintang shouldn't have, so it couldn't be the cocktails.

Bai Ye frowned, thinking for a moment – Could it be that there had been something wrong with the mushrooms Eleven and Issel had picked?

Bai Jintang and Ma Han pointed at the garbage bin, saying that there was a female ghost inside just now!

Bai Ye stared at the bin for a while, his attention eventually settling on its rim. He gestured towards it for the two to come closer.

Ma Han and Bai Jintang both leaned in to look.

There was a streetlight by the cabin door, so the area was well-lit.

The two of them clearly saw a bloody handprint on the edge of the bin.

Bai Ye looked up and signalled towards the security camera by the door, telling them to go inside and check the footage.

The two followed Bai Ye back into the cabin.

Inside, Xiao Yumi had stopped crying and was asleep on Zhao Jue's shoulder.

Zhan Zhao was sitting in the playpen, holding a toy and chatting animatedly with Jiajia. The two were chatting away in a language that no one else could understand.

The holiday cabin had several large windows, but all of them could only open to a crack less than ten centimetres wide, and they were fitted with protective bars.

Bai Yutang was crouched by the window, shining his phone's light on it. There was a bloody handprint on the glass.

When they had first checked into the cabin, Bai Yutang had already inspected the house. He, Bai Ye, Eleven, and Issel were all highly alert and observant types, and none of them had noticed a handprint there before, which meant it had most likely been pressed on just recently.

Someone must have appeared outside the window, gripping the frame and perhaps making a noise, that must have been what caught Lisbon's attention.

Zhao Hu had finally finished in the toilet and ran down the stairs, wrapping his arms around Lisbon and rubbing against his mane, saying he wanted to borrow a bit of the king of beasts' yang energy.

Bai Ye pulled out a box from under the coffee table, took out his laptop, and connected it to the holiday cabin's surveillance system.

Bai Ye rewound the footage and, before long, found traces of the "female ghost".

When the recording from the camera at the door was played, the moment when the SCI team had been drawn inside by the lion's roar, the "female ghost" in the garbage bin suddenly leapt out and ran towards the opposite side...

There weren't many surveillance cameras in this holiday resort, and since many areas had no lighting, the captured range was limited.

However, the camera angle by their own door was excellent.

Bai Ye scrubbed the video back further. There was footage of the female ghost jumping out of the garbage bin, but none of her getting into it.

There wasn't time to wonder how she had ended up in there, because when the footage continued, it clearly showed the female ghost springing out of the bin and running straight ahead, into the small cabin opposite, which was... the one where Professor Wu Wen and his students were staying.

Bai Yutang immediately led Zhao Hu and Ma Han next door.

On the table, the laptop still displayed the surveillance Bai Yutang had installed earlier that afternoon. The students in the next house appeared perfectly normal, still in the living room, doing homework and eating fried chicken.

The camera by the door only caught the female ghost running into the neighbouring courtyard, but once she entered the yard, it didn't capture whether she went into the cabin itself.

Gongsun dragged the clip of the female ghost jumping from the bin back and forth repeatedly. "That's definitely not a plastic mannequin. Look at the way she takes off and lands, that's a real person!"

Zhan Zhao carried Jiajia over and pointed at the figure on the screen, asking her, "Maidudu?"

Jiajia blinked at the monitor a few times, then wrapped her arms around Zhan Zhao's neck and looked around, as if she couldn't concentrate.

Zhan Zhao tried to get her to look at the person in the video, but Jiajia kept glancing from side to side, fiddling absently with the doll in her hands, seeming distracted.

Zhan Zhao looked at Zhao Jue beside him in confusion – What sort of reaction is this?

Zhao Jue shrugged. "Maybe she's sleepy?"

At that moment, on the surveillance feed from the cabin next door, Bai Yutang, Ma Han, and Zhao Hu had already entered the ground-floor living room.

———

Professor Wu Wen had been reading on the sofa. Hearing the knock at the door, he went to open it, only to find Bai Yutang standing there with Zhao Hu and Ma Han. They asked if anything had happened just now. For instance, if anyone had knocked.

The students looked at each other, and all shook their heads, saying no.

Bai Yutang counted the students present and noticed a few were missing, so he asked Professor Wu where the others were.

Wu Wen pointed upstairs and said a few of them were in their rooms...

As soon as the words left his mouth, a sharp scream suddenly rang out. It was a male voice, followed by the sound of a door opening, hurried footsteps, and girls shrieking.

Everyone downstairs froze, and Bai Yutang and the others immediately rushed upstairs.

The moment they reached the second floor, a naked boy came charging straight towards the staircase. Bai Yutang quickly dodged to one side.

Behind him, Zhao Hu didn't have time to move and was hit head-on.

With a loud bang, chaos erupted as people toppled over each other.

Zhao Hu fell backwards and was caught by Ma Han, who had been right behind him.

The naked boy, however, slipped and fell on his back, sending a large splash of water across the floor and leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him.

At the end of the corridor, the door to one of the rooms stood open, and the sound of running water could still be heard inside, clearly a bathroom.

"Ow..." The boy was dazed by the fall and lay on the ground groaning.

Two doors along the corridor were also open, and two girls ran back into their rooms with their eyes covered, shouting, "Ah! My eyes are burning! I'm going blind!"

Bai Yutang and Ma Han also found the scene hard on the eyes, while Zhao Hu, drenched in water and shower gel, grimaced.

Professor Wu Wen came running up from downstairs. "Aiya! What on earth happened?!"

The boy had been stunned by the fall, but now he sat up and came to his senses. He pointed behind him and shouted, "There's a ghost! A ghost clinging to the window!"

Bai Yutang immediately dashed into the bathroom.

He turned off the water and went to check the window.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu followed him in. Zhao Hu grabbed a towel from the door to dry himself off, then fetched a bath towel and handed it to the boy.

The boy hurriedly wrapped himself in it, though most of his classmates from upstairs and downstairs had already come to have a look, leaving him sitting on the ground naked, feeling utterly mortified.

Once he was wrapped in the bath towel, he stammered as he described what had just happened.

He had been showering when there was suddenly a loud bang against the window, leaving the shape of a hand, as if someone was holding on to the window from the outside.

The boy was severely short-sighted, so he leaned closer to the window to have a look.

Because the window was fogged up with steam, he had wiped it... and suddenly, a large pale face appeared outside the window, a blank, featureless face like that of a plastic mannequin...

The boy had let out a blood-curdling scream and bolted from the bathroom in terror.

In the bathroom, Bai Yutang also found a bloody handprint on the window, one that had been pressed from the outside.

The handprint was unusually clear. Bai Yutang took a photo with his phone and ran it through the fingerprint database, but didn't find a match.

He pushed at the window, but it could only open a narrow crack, and there were protective bars fitted, so it was impossible for anyone to get in or out.

He went downstairs and outside.

Ma Han pointed to an air-conditioning unit mounted between the first and second floors. "They must have stood on that to climb up."

Two cars were parked beneath the air conditioner. Climbing onto one and then onto the outdoor unit didn't seem difficult, any adult should be able to do it.

Zhao Hu asked the boy whether that "ghost" had been male or female.

The boy had been so terrified at the time, and on top of that, he was near-sighted, so he couldn't tell.

Zhao Hu thought that made sense, he himself had nearly been scared witless just now. He only wondered what was wrong with this ghost, it went around frightening people everywhere...

Bai Yutang and Ma Han searched all around the front and back of the cabin, but in the pitch darkness, they found no clues. Still, the doors and windows all seemed secure.

To be absolutely sure, the three of them carried out another inspection inside the rooms. The students were cooperative, letting them check every single one.

Finally, after cross-checking with Bai Ye's side to confirm the surveillance footage, the three men reminded the professor to lock the door before they left.

It was nearly midnight by then, and the party next door had stopped as well. Zhao Hu and Ma Han headed back.

Bai Yutang returned to the small cabin, sat down on the sofa, and fell into deep thought – It feels as though being on holiday is even more exhausting than working.

Bai Ye tidied up the laptop on the table, then came to sit on the sofa and said to Bai Yutang, "That ghost that left the handprint, it seems like it was covering for another one."

Bai Yutang nodded, he'd noticed it too. Every time they were lured away by that ghost, the other one disappeared.

"The problem is..." Bai Yutang frowned in confusion. "Why the haunting?"

Bai Ye also found it strange. "When did that female ghost climb into the garbage bin? The footage never showed it."

Bai Jintang came over and sat down. "Aren't the rumours about this estate saying there's a pair of ghosts haunting the place?"

Bai Ye and Bai Yutang both glanced at Bai Jintang – So there are two mannequins? One male, one female?

Gongsun, standing by the window with his phone, took a photo of the handprint.

The system's automatic search showed no matching results.

Gongsun came back to the sofa and looked at the three men surnamed Bai sitting there. He found the scene rather amusing and took a photo of them too.

Lisbon had gone back into the playpen to nap again, Xiao Yumi was already asleep, and Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue were chatting with Jiajia.

Jiajia still didn't react much to the video being played, but she would look towards the window and say, "Maidudu."

The two great psychologists were utterly stumped by a baby, scratching their heads and analysing from every angle to no avail.

Just then, Zhan Zhao's tablet chimed.

Gongsun picked it up and saw a live broadcast notification. The link for Zhan Zhao's previously booked Laughing Bird livestream had popped up, signalling that the midnight broadcast had begun.

‿︵‿︵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 13, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 27, 2025 by Angel