S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 151

Special Files – Collector 36 – Fishing in Troubled Waters

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Zhan Zhao analysed the whole thing, leaving Bai Yutang a little bewildered.

Bai Yutang was afraid he had misunderstood, so he carefully sorted through it again and asked, "So you mean... Wu Wen secretly used Zhao Jue's data to train an AI, used it as a grading system for the students, and two groups of collectors fought to the death and even risked exposing themselves just to seize this AI?"

Zhan Zhao blinked and tilted his head, he felt that Bai Yutang's summary was both right and not quite right...

Zhao Jue rubbed his brow at the side, looking a little irritated.

"Then..." Bai Yutang felt he had stepped into a blind spot in his knowledge. "If they wanted to steal the AI, why send real killers? Wouldn't hiring a hacker make more sense for stealing AI?"

"It's not about stealing the AI!" Zhan Zhao shook his head.

Bai Yutang stared at him intently, waiting for him to continue.

"They wanted to steal a person, that person is the AI!"

Bai Yutang stared at Zhan Zhao with a puzzled expression for a while, then finally turned to Zhao Jue – Asking for a translation!

Zhao Jue held his forehead, stretched out his hand, and beckoned to Wu Wen, who had just assigned assessment tasks to the students not far away.

Wu Wen hurried over.

The students went into the cabin to investigate, while Ma Han and Zhao Hu stood on guard nearby, keeping alert. The two teaching assistants held tablets, observing the students' assessment progress in real time.

Wu Wen happily ran up to Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue asked him, "Are you hiding something from me?"

Wu Wen froze and scratched his head, "No..."

"Hm..." Zhao Jue asked him, "Have you been writing a book or something recently?"

"Er..." At first, Wu Wen was quite happy to be asked and had just been about to say a few words, but then he seemed to realise something was wrong. He drew in a breath and continued scratching his head.

Zhan Zhao nodded at Bai Yutang, clearly having guessed the same thing, though Bai Yutang still didn't understand.

Zhao Jue raised his hand speechlessly, pretending he was about to pat Wu Wen on the shoulder.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Wu Wen hurriedly shielded his shoulders with both hands and dodged to the side.

"Speak." Zhao Jue was already a bit impatient.

"I did write a book..." Wu Wen looked rather embarrassed.

Bai Yutang was puzzled. Don't psychologists often write books, what's wrong with that? What's there to be embarrassed about?

"I... well, I'd always written academic things before, and not many people read them, so I wanted to try writing a novel." Wu Wen sneaked a look at Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue glared at him, and Wu Wen had no choice but to confess honestly, "It's like this... I originally suggested using your..."

Saying this, he gestured at Zhao Jue. "...your data to train an AI..."

Zhan Zhao curled his lips.

"That proposal was rejected by the university... but I still wanted to try it, so I used AI to fabricate a student..."

Bai Yutang finally understood what Zhan Zhao was talking about. The AI Zhan Zhao had been referring to was not the grading AI in the university's app, but an AI disguised as a student, mixed into that grading system.

"I secretly fed the AI with Master Zhao's data, letting it participate in certain projects under a student identity..."

"What name did that AI use?" Bai Yutang felt that the number of students and their assessment results should always match up. If there were an AI, wouldn't there be an extra set of results?

"Uh..." Wu Wen continued scratching his head.

"To avoid being discovered, you randomly overwrote one student's result each time, didn't you?" Zhan Zhao said, taking out his phone. "Every student enters their answers into the assessment system during tests, and the system marks them automatically. But to prevent cheating, every student who joins an assessment has to be confirmed by you. When you were confirming them, you tampered with them, right? And those collected materials, you used them to write your book?"

Wu Wen nodded, but immediately waved his hands and shook his head. "I have already stopped doing it. The material I collected before, I did use it to write a book, but it didn't go very well, the editor rejected it..."

When Wu Wen said this, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue exchanged a look. They then asked, "You showed your book to the editor of the publishing house? Which publisher, which editor?"

"I met an editor on a psychology forum..."

After hearing this, both Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue held their foreheads at the same time. Though neither spoke, Bai Yutang could practically hear them both shouting in unison, "You idiot! Do you have a brain?"

"Have you met this editor in person? Which editor?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Mhmm, you might know her, she's from the same publisher that released your book..." Wu Wen said. "A female editor called Tian Yu."

Zhan Zhao frowned and thought for a moment... When he had investigated that case involving Gao Min's friend, he had thoroughly gone through the publisher's personnel files, and he didn't remember any editor named Tian Yu.

But it might be a pen name, many editors used pen names, so Zhan Zhao called Gao Min specifically to check.

But after being nagged for updates on his manuscript by Gao Min, the conclusion he got was that their company had no editor surnamed Tian, neither male nor female, neither by real name nor pen name.

Zhan Zhao hung up the phone and asked Wu Wen, "Did you two meet at the publishing house?"

"We met at the dessert shop opposite the publishing house. Although we arranged to meet at the publisher, after discussing it, we thought we should be more cautious. Quite a few teachers in our department publish with that publisher, and I didn't want people gossiping. If it didn't get published, it'd be quite embarrassing..."

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue held their foreheads again – And you call yourself someone who works in psychology? This is the classic setup for a scam!

But Wu Wen clearly didn't understand what his book had to do with the case, so he asked, "But the book wasn't published, and I stopped the research ages ago. The AI training basically failed too..."

"Do you still have the original manuscript?" Zhan Zhao asked if he had a copy on his computer for them to look at.

Wu Wen hesitated bashfully, but still sent the manuscript to Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, muttering as he did so. He felt he had written it quite well, yet the editor had criticised him so harshly that he had lost all confidence. Sure enough, he wasn't suited for entertainment, only for academic work.

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue narrowed their eyes at their phones and skimmed through the manuscript quickly.

The protagonist of the novel was a psychology student who, through a series of psychology-related case assessments at the university, uncovered hidden clues within the cases, overturning wrongful convictions that had already been settled, or discovering further crimes the murderers had committed. No matter how you looked at it, this protagonist was a student version of Zhao Jue, and the thinking pattern wasn't that of a detective, it was the perspective of a villain. The protagonist was essentially a psychopath, even more twisted than the villains...

After reading it, Zhao Jue used the manuscript in his hand to smack Wu Wen. "You've written me like a complete idiot!"

Wu Wen held his head and defended himself, "No, it's all fictional..."

Zhan Zhao shook his head. "He really is a complete idiot..."

Zhao Jue continued smacking Wu Wen.

Bai Yutang felt a headache and asked Zhan Zhao, "What's going on with this book?"

"The problem really is in this book." Zhan Zhao explained to Bai Yutang, "The student in the book is fictional, yes, but the assessments he participates in are real. These exam questions and research projects can all be found in the psychology department at X University. And don't forget, some of those projects involve communicating with patients in special hospitals or with prisoners in prisons. The communication method is just like the one with Xiaoxue, using equipment to speak..."

Bai Yutang found that reasonable, it was exactly the kind of setup that would allow an AI to pretend to be a human...

"Among those prisoners, some might be connected to Tian Ming or to the collectors' organisation. In their eyes, a psychology student who takes part in assessment projects and communicates with prisoners would be seen as a genius similar to Zhao Jue?" Bai Yutang had finally worked it out. "Then why are they certain this genius is a criminal?"

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both gave Wu Wen a sidelong look. "Apart from the material you collected before, what else did you use to feed that AI?"

At this point, Wu Wen was quite guilty, glancing sideways at the sky.

Zhao Jue's gaze on him was becoming increasingly dangerous.

"Eh..." Wu Wen had no choice but to confess. "I, I found a friend and paid a bit of money to buy some materials."

"What materials?"

"Just, a little bit of the police archive, information on homicide cases." Wu Wen muttered under his breath. "I bought it for academic research..."

"Who did you buy it from?" Bai Yutang found it unbelievable. The police database is strictly managed. Is there a mole? And how much data has been sold?"

"I met him on a forum too..." Wu Wen pouted. "I originally thought they were all psychology enthusiasts..."

Bai Yutang frowned when he heard this. Was the material really leaked from the police? Or was it connected to the collectors' organisation? Had he alerted the organisation when buying the information?

"Did you tell anyone that you wrote the book by observing the behaviour of AI?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Wu Wen shook his head. Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both understood, Wu Wen was afraid of losing face if he told the truth, so he insisted the novel was entirely original.

And because of this amateurish yet professional-looking operation of his, he had not only fooled but fascinated those collectors, making them think an actual "rare collection" existed. In the end, they had fought tooth and nail over... an AI.

"These students..." Zhan Zhao asked Wu Wen, "You had the AI take exams and projects in their place, didn't you?"

Wu Wen nodded.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged a look – So the collectors, after conducting their own investigation, had narrowed the target down to these students. They believe the collection was among them, and once they see the results of this assessment...

"We can fish!" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang felt that as long as Wu Wen used the AI to replace one of them again, the collectors would be able to confirm which student it was, and that student could be used to draw the collectors out.

But this method was very dangerous. After all, the students were not professionals, and using them as bait would easily lead to danger. Secondly, even if the collectors confirmed their target, they might not act immediately; they could continue to observe for a while, which would make it easy for the plan to fall apart. If those people discovered it was a misunderstanding and that they had mistaken an AI for a human, they would probably disappear. At the very least, Tian Ming would disappear immediately, and it would be difficult to find him again in the vast sea of people.

The current situation really was similar to fishing. They had the line, the hook, and the bait, while all around them were big fish and small fish. They want to catch them all in one swoop, but they can't harm the bait...

"I don't think we can catch them by fishing, we need to use a net." Bai Yutang, perhaps because he had recently been learning about fishing with Uncle Ye and the others, was full of ideas.

Zhan Zhao glanced at him, rubbed his chin, and said, "That's right, we need to scoop them all up. Even if we hook just one, the rest will be scared off..."

"So that's how it is." Zhao Jue seemed to understand. "No wonder so many people turned up, those are the small fish pushed out by the big ones to test the hook."

"What should we do then?" Bai Yutang saw that the students over there were already entering their assessment answers. "If the exam ends, this game may be over."

"And the small fish hiding at the foot of the mountain will definitely create chaos to divert our attention," Zhan Zhao said. "If those killers can't find the collector, then of course they'll also want to prevent us from finding him."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were in a difficult position. The situation was more difficult than anything they had dealt with before...

At that moment, Zhao Jue took out his phone, tapped rapidly, and sent a message.

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked over at him.

Zhao Jue glanced back at them. "Catching fish, every industry has its own secrets, ask the professionals!"

......

Down the mountain, Bai Ye, who had been sprinkling seasoning over the barbecue, felt his phone vibrate. He took it out, looked at it, and tilted his head slightly.

Eleven, who was fanning the grill, and Issel, who was turning the skewers, saw Bai Ye suddenly freeze, and both looked up at him – What are you doing? The seasoning's uneven now, keep your hands moving!

"He said we're catching fish," Bai Ye muttered as he held his phone.

"Catching fish?" Issel didn't understand. "What fish are we catching? We're barbecuing!"

"Exactly, there's still some of the fish we caught last time in the fridge," Eleven said that eating fish is good, and eating fish is good for blood circulation.

"How can you make sure you catch all the fish at once without harming the bait?" Bai Ye asked a strange question.

Issel and Uncle Chopsticks exchanged a look and answered in unison, "Drain the water."

Bai Ye glanced at the two newly promoted kitchen apprentices who had taken away his seasoning bottle to sprinkle it on the barbecue themselves, then nodded with admiration. "Genius."

‿︵‿︵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: December 12, 2025 by Angel

Edited: January 20, 2026 by Angel