S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 139

Special Files – Collector 24 – Collection Hall Two

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Xiaofei put down the fire hydrant and stepped back a few paces. Compared with SCI, the SWAT team still rarely encountered scenes like this. Judging from how foul the stench was, there had to be a burial pit underneath. Good grief... an actual horror-film scene.

The SWAT officers all handed their gas masks to the SCI members.

Gongsun took a mask and put it on, then walked over to the fire hydrant.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu also put on their gas masks and helped him move the entire hydrant aside.

Gongsun shone his flashlight down into the ground for a while, then lifted his head and signalled for the two of them to put the cover back on.

By this point, Bai Yutang felt utterly despondent. He had finally got a holiday, and not only had it gone up in smoke, but now there was also a major case to be solved...

In the end, Gongsun came back, took off his mask, and said, "There are some dismembered corpses inside."

Bai Yutang's heart sank even further – Great, not only murder but dismemberment.

"But they're all dead animals." That one sentence from Gongsun revived Bai Yutang's already dead heart.

"From an initial look, there were no human remains."

"All animals?" Zhan Zhao glanced at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue spread his hands – Fiction is not the same as reality.

"Although this method is strange, even a bit perverse..." Gongsun thought for a moment, "using dead animals as compost isn't illegal. At most, it counts as improper disposal of animal carcasses... a fine or something."

"What about Laughing Bird?" Zhan Zhao had only just asked when a burst of "hahaha" laughter suddenly sounded.

That annoying laugh... Laughing Bird?

Everyone looked up... because the sound was coming from above.

Eventually, their searching gazes settled on a branch of the wisteria tree.

From Bai Yutang's angle, there was a cell phone resting on the branch, its screen glowing.

Bai Yutang put on gloves, climbed up the tree trunk, and reached out to take the phone from the branch.

At that moment, the phone showed an incoming call from an unknown caller.

Zhan Zhao observed Little Dolphin and the cameraman. Both looked somewhat puzzled, so he asked, "Is this Laughing Bird's phone?"

Both nodded, but said that Laughing Bird's phone only vibrated, it didn't ring.

Bai Yutang pressed the speaker button and answered the call. A very AI-like female voice came through, saying word by word, "Collection hall two, collection hall two."

After mechanically repeating it a few times, the call hung up.

"Collection hall..." Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen, who had come over to watch the commotion, both inexplicably felt those two words sounded awfully familiar...

"Chopping firewood that day," Zhao Zhen remembered. "That forest where we got stuck in that looping illusion."

Bai Jintang also nodded. There had been a tree with the "collection hall" marker on it. They had realised they were lost thanks to that very tree.

"Is this collection hall two then?" Bai Yutang asked a rather simple question. "Does that mean there's also an collection hall one?"

Bai Jintang and Zhao Zhen exchanged a glance. Was there a one in that forest? They seemed to recall only seeing "collection hall", not a number.

Just as they were thinking about it, a phone rang again, but this time it was Xiaofei's.

Xiaofei answered. It was a SWAT officer calling, the one who had just escorted the two injured police officers to the hospital.

The officer said that one of the officers had woken up and claimed that the one who attacked them was Laughing Bird.

Everyone was stunned.

Xiaofei and Wen Xiaorou both looked at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang with a trace of gossip in their eyes – So the person who had run off earlier was Laughing Bird? A thief crying thief?

Bai Yutang asked the SWAT officer whether that officer could take the call.

The SWAT officer handed the phone over to the officer.

Bai Yutang asked whether he was certain Laughing Bird had attacked them.

The officer was the same one who had called Bai Yutang earlier. He and another officer had entered the manor to investigate and were standing by a broken window looking inside...

When he had been on the phone with Bai Yutang, his partner had been standing behind him.

Suddenly, there had been a bang, and his partner collapsed beside him. Startled, he turned around and saw Laughing Bird standing behind him, holding something like a black stick. Without warning, the man brought it down on his head, and he blacked out.

These two officers had gone there specifically to find Laughing Bird. Before going in, they had looked at his photo, and they also occasionally watched Laughing Bird's videos, so he insisted he could not have misidentified him. It was definitely Laughing Bird.

Everyone turned to look at Little Dolphin and the cameraman.

The two of them were gaping, unable to shut their mouths. After a long moment, Little Dolphin said in utter disbelief, "He... he's such a timid person, he would attack the police?"

The cameraman vigorously shook his head. "Old Cheng is useless. He can't lift with his arms, only with his shoulders. He doesn't exercise at all. How could he possibly knock a policeman out with one blow?!"

To be honest, Zhan Zhao also felt that it was a bit unreasonable.

This whole sequence looked more like someone was deliberately luring them here to make them discover that Laughing Bird had once killed his ex-girlfriend... and to "show off" various collections along the way.

Had Laughing Bird lost his mind? Did he bring the police here himself? Or was he afraid that the officers might find the statue, so he attacked them? That didn't make sense either...

Besides, the person who attacked the police had slipped away right under the noses of SCI and the SWAT team, which meant he must have had some skill, and he was clearly very familiar with the terrain and passageways here. Laughing Bird didn't seem to meet those conditions at all.

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "What should we do?"

Zhan Zhao also found this difficult. With the size of this Wisteria Manor, both the surface area and the likely underground structures, if they truly wanted to investigate, they would need to mobilise a large police force, and might even have to use heavy equipment.

This time, the SWAT team had been called out only because the officers had gone missing... but now the officers had been found. According to him, the missing Laughing Bird was the perpetrator... which meant all they needed to do was put out a wanted notice for Laughing Bird. That seemed like a job for the criminal police team.

Bai Yutang could already imagine what would happen if he called Bao Sir. They were supposed to be on holiday, yet they had stumbled across a mysterious runaway mannequin, then a missing internet celebrity... and as for the bodies found, only animals...

Bai Yutang let out an "Oh," and rubbed his neck – This is troublesome.

Bai Yutang handed the phone to Zhan Zhao, telling him to talk to Bao Sir instead.

As soon as Zhan Zhao made the call, Bao Sir picked up and asked in confusion, "Aren't you on holiday? What're you calling for while on holiday? Found another body?"

Zhan Zhao adjusted his breathing and then, as quickly as possible, recounted everything they had encountered during the past few days of their holiday.

About ten minutes later, Zhan Zhao finished and waited for Bao Sir's response.

There was a brief silence, then Bao Zheng suddenly asked, "Wisteria House? You're inside the Wisteria House?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a look, Bao Sir's focus was rather interesting.

"Er..." Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were still thinking about how to answer when they heard Bao Sir ask, "There are missing people and an attack on officers, is that right?"

Zhan Zhao wondered if Bao Sir had misunderstood. The missing officers had been found, and the missing Laughing Bird might be the suspect... but before he could clarify, Bai Yutang tugged at him.

Zhan Zhao glanced at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang answered into the phone, "That's right."

"I'll deploy officers to you. It'll take roughly two hundred people to thoroughly search that manor. I'll send the forensics and medical examiners too, they'll arrive in half an hour." With that, Bao Sir hung up.

Even Zhao Jue and Bai Ye, who were standing nearby, were surprised by this reaction.

Zhao Jue, who had only been mildly interested at first, rubbed his chin and leaned closer. "What's this then? Does Bao Xiao Hei have some kind of connection to this manor?"

Zhan Zhao felt that this was possible.

"Captain."

At this moment, the SWAT officer in charge of monitoring the equipment told Xiaofei, "The robot dogs seem to have found something."

Because the manor was very large, while everyone had been patrolling inside earlier, the two robot dogs had circled around the outer fence, working together with the drones to search for clues.

The SWAT officer said that the two dogs had found something strange outside the fence, something that looked like a boiler.

"A boiler?" Xiaofei had grown up on a farm, so he felt that a boiler supplying hot water for such a large estate would have been perfectly normal, but why was it installed outside?

Since they had to wait for Bao Sir anyway, the whole SCI team simply went out to have a look.

Just outside the manor's fence, about five or six metres away, the spot was fairly well hidden, tucked away in the trees.

Outside the trees, one of the robot dogs was waiting for them. When it saw them approaching, it turned its head and led the way.

Bai Yutang developed a strong interest in the two robot dogs and asked Xiaofei, "Are they easy to use?"

Xiaofei felt they were very convenient.

Zhan Zhao also thought they were good, just a bit small. "If they were made bigger so you could ride them, that would be even better."

......

They had only walked a few steps into the woods when they saw the other dog, standing beside a strangely shaped furnace.

"Is this a boiler?" Xiaofei felt it didn't quite look like one.

Gongsun pushed his glasses up. "Isn't this an incinerator..."

Everyone looked at him.

Gongsun went over, opened the door, and looked inside, then nodded. "It really is a simple incinerator, and quite a sizeable one..."

"For burning people?" Everyone looked at Gongsun.

"Possibly." Gongsun took out a pair of gloves, flicked them before putting them on, then pulled out the tweezers he always carried and picked up a black, greasy-looking substance from the ground. "Corpse oil..."

Seeing everyone's horrified expressions, Gongsun waved his hand. "It might also be the remains of burning small animal carcasses... If it had been used to burn people or large animals, there would be fragments of bone left behind..."

As he spoke, Gongsun used the tweezers to scrape through the accumulated ash at the bottom of the furnace. "It was probably mainly used to burn branches and leaves."

Everyone let out a breath of relief.

After scanning the ashes, Gongsun frowned. He reached out and held his hand above the pile of ash, feeling the temperature.

"This furnace..." Gongsun then used the tweezers to pick up a small piece of blackened charcoal from the ashes. "Someone used it within the last twelve hours."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi leaned in to look at the piece of blackened material held in the tweezers and asked, "What's that?"

"Looks like some sort of thick fabric." Gongsun put the thing back.

After everyone had finished examining the incinerator, they turned to look at the woods behind it... The patch of forest was quite dense, and faintly visible on the ground, there seemed to be a small path.

"Has someone been walking through here regularly?" Ma Han and Zhao Hu walked forward a few steps to examine the ground...

"What large wild animals are there in these mountains?" Xiao Bai Chi had watched wilderness survival programmes before, a small path appearing in the forest could also have been a game trail trampled out by large animals.

Wen Xiaorou shook her head. "Apparently none."

The SWAT team occasionally received calls to drive away large wild animals, but they had never had a case in this particular area.

At that moment, the sound of police sirens and many vehicles coming up the mountain road reached them, it was probably Bao Sir arriving with reinforcements.

Everyone came out of the woods and headed towards the manor's main gate.

The long convoy halted, and a large number of officers got out of the vehicles. The police K9 unit had arrived as well, with real dogs this time.

From the car at the front, Bao Sir stepped out and exchanged greetings with Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

At that moment, the door on the other side of the car opened, and a short-haired, very capable-looking woman got out.

Xiaofei paused in surprise when he saw her and asked, "Why are you here?"

Wen Xiaorou also recognised her, she was the "Han Li" Xiaofei had mentioned to them on the way.

"Han Li?" Zhan Zhao was also somewhat surprised to see her.

Han Li greeted the people she knew, then took a tablet out of her backpack. "I've got a map of the area."

‿︵‿︵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 26, 2025 by Angel

Edited: November 27, 2025 by Angel