S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 154

Special Files – Collector 39 – Exposed Identity

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In the dessert shop opposite the police station, business had been getting better and better ever since a little alpaca arrived.

Bai Ye had originally been quite worried about the shop. Although the location was excellent and he owned the premises himself, making it a guaranteed profit, the flavours had gone completely astray under Zhao Jue's "personal preferences".

A perfectly good dessert shop had turned into a novelty shop and had practically become a running joke. Every time a new product launched, crowds came to check in, and business was bizarrely good. Bai Ye was not worried about making money, he was worried that someone might eat something and end up in trouble... Mango-taro-fermented bean curd-flavoured milk tea, shrimp-and-durian cream-filled mochi... If someone really ate themselves to death, there might even be a lawsuit.

Fortunately, Zhao Jue had hired Zhu Yi as the barista and Tan Wen as the shop manager. Under the two girls' "reasonable" management, the dessert shop finally started to get back on track. At the very least, the dark experimental vibe was no longer so obvious.

In addition, because Bai Ye and the culinary duo had performed astonishingly well in the cooking competition, the twins had urged them to open another shop in the food city. Bai Ye thought it was a good idea, at least the culinary duo could have proper jobs, which counted as retirees being re-employed.

Recently, Bai Ye and the others had been busy preparing to open the restaurant. The twins had already secured a venue, and quite a few idle people who had been won over by Bai Ye's cooking were ready to invest. Guan Xiaoyue and Xu Lie were especially enthusiastic.

Bai Ye had put all his attention into the restaurant, so he handed the dessert shop over to the girls to run.

After returning to the city from the "collection hall", Wen Xiaorou took Han Li and Xiaofei into the dessert shop.

Han Li looked at the group of students drinking coffee while gathered around the alpaca and asked Xiaofei in confusion – Shouldn't people go to a street food stall if they want to drink?

Xiaofei had no answer. Ever since the Shi Yanshuo case had been wrapped up, Wen Xiaorou had been hanging out with Tan Wen, Guan Xiaohong, and Zhu Yi. Recently, Xiaorou hadn't even been going to the cafeteria for meals, running here every day to try the new menu...

The dessert shop still kept some of its original novelty appeal, but the flavours were obviously much more normal now...

Xiaofei glanced around and noticed that most of the customers were women. Standing there, he felt a little embarrassed.

Wen Xiaorou dragged Han Li over to sit at the coffee bar, where Zhu Yi was brewing coffee.

Tan Wen was holding a tray and rolled over to the counter on a balance scooter. As she handed the order slips to Zhu Yi, she sized up Han Li.

Wen Xiaorou made some introductions.

Zhu Yi asked Han Li with a smile, "Would you like some coffee? Want to try one of our new items?"

"Uh..." Han Li hesitated for a moment. "This doesn't really seem like a good time to drink coffee."

"At this time?" Both Zhu Yi and Tan Wen looked puzzled.

Han Li asked Wen Xiaorou, "Didn't you say we were going to drink?"

"It's not even dark yet, why are you drinking so early?"

Tan Wen laughed in a carefree manner, "What's wrong? Got your heart broken? Did you get dumped?"

Han Li thought about it for a moment. "Not exactly heartbroken, I just found my dad's head."

"Cough cough..." Guan Xiaohong, who was sitting nearby drinking coffee while sketching design drafts, choked on a mouthful of coffee and sprayed it all over a sheet of paper.

The three girls stared at Han Li in shock. "You found what?"

Wen Xiaorou nodded at the three of them.

Zhu Yi took a bottle of alcohol out from behind the counter, poured half a glass into a freshly brewed cup of coffee, stuck in a straw, and handed it to Han Li. "Drink up!"

Han Li took it in confusion and looked at it. Is this coffee or alcohol? She lowered her head and sniffed it. Beneath the aroma of coffee was an intense alcoholic scent. Strangely enough, the smell was actually quite harmonious.

Xiaofei watched as she cautiously took a tentative sip through the straw. Then she lifted her head, her eyes lighting up, downed the entire glass in one go, and pushed the empty cup back in front of Zhu Yi, the meaning clear – Another cup!

Xiaofei and Wen Xiaorou exchanged a look and raised their hands to indicate that they wanted one too.

Zhu Yi made coffee cocktails for the three of them, muttering words of comfort to Han Li as she worked. She said that she herself had once been kidnapped by a pervert and had nearly lost her life because of a few oysters. Tan Wen also said that her family had encountered a pervert as well and had been torn apart as a result.

Han Li looked at the two of them. "My dad probably was the kind of pervert who ruined other people's families, so his dying early wasn't necessarily a bad thing..."

The three girls stared at her in shock once again. Zhu Yi took out another bottle and poured more alcohol into the coffee – Increasing the dose!

Xiaofei finally got to drink the coffee cocktail and thought it was really good. Wen Xiaorou had once described Zhu Yi as a "beverage genius", as long as it was liquid, even the plain water she brewed tasted good. It really wasn't an exaggeration.

After three glasses, whether it was the alcohol, the caffeine, or the somewhat "offbeat" way of comforting from a group of girls with "unusual" life experiences, Han Li felt much better and a little buzzed.

Tan Wen cut her a huge slice of chocolate cake and even scooped a large spoonful of ice cream from a tub onto the cake.

Zhu Yi poured a bit of strong liquor over it and flicked a lighter.

Han Li stared at the chocolate ice-cream cake in front of her, burning with blue flames – It looks delicious!

Xiaofei and Wen Xiaorou were both drawn in by the cake and raised their hands, saying they wanted one too.

Just as she was about to eat the cake, Wen Xiaorou's phone rang. She picked it up and saw that it was Zhan Zhao calling.

After answering, Wen Xiaorou listened with a shocked expression. "Huh? You want me to interrogate Fang Beibei?"

Zhan Zhao, who was still up in the mountains, patiently explained, "Ask her whether she knows Tian Ming."

"Who's Tian Ming?" Wen Xiaorou was even more confused.

Zhan Zhao exchanged a look with Bai Yutang, remembering the collector's identity they had just analysed on the road earlier, something Wen Xiaorou didn't yet know about.

"What's wrong?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were just thinking about how to organise their words to explain things clearly to Wen Xiaorou when they heard that Wen Xiaorou seemed to be speaking to someone else.

At that moment, Wen Xiaorou was holding the phone and looking at Han Li.

When she mentioned the name "Tian Ming" just now, Han Li suddenly looked up at her and muttered Tian Ming's name twice under her breath.

"You know him?" Wen Xiaorou asked Han Li.

"Tian Ming... is he a psychologist who specialises in treating adolescents?" Han Li asked into the phone.

On the other end of the line, both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were surprised. "You know Tian Ming?"

"Mhmm," Han Li replied. "I took his behavioural correction classes when I was little."

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly. "Behavioural correction?"

Xiaofei, however, remembered that there was such a thing.

When Han Li was younger, she had already been quite different from other students. She appeared unusually calm, or rather, her emotional responses were relatively slow. Teachers or adults who were not familiar with her thought she might just be introverted, or perhaps very well behaved... But that "very well-behaved" Han Li had once caused a major incident.

There was a cleaning lady at the school who was very kind and got along well with the children... That woman often had injuries on her face, and it was said that her husband abused her.

Xiaofei remembered that day clearly. They had been in art class, painting with oils, when a burst of commotion suddenly came from the corridor.

The children all crowded over to the windows to look, and they saw the cleaning lady being dragged by the hair down the stairs by a man. Several teachers tried to stop him, but the man was exceptionally violent.

The art teacher of Xiaofei's class was a man, quite tall and very kind-hearted. He ran out to intervene but was shoved to the ground by the man.

When the teacher fell, the cigarettes and lighter in his pocket spilt out onto the floor. At that moment, Han Li walked past him. She bent down and reached out to pick up the lighter that had fallen to the ground.

The teacher saw a thin, small girl from his class walking towards that ferocious domestic abuser and was just about to stop her when he realised something was wrong. Han Li was holding a large bottle of turpentine used for cleaning oil paintbrushes.

At that moment, the abuser was standing at the top of the stairs, dragging the cleaning lady down. The cleaning lady clutched the handrail and struggled desperately.

Young Han Li walked up behind the man expressionlessly and lifted her foot, kicking him hard in the back of the knee.

The kick landed with uncanny precision. The man's leg buckled, and then he took another kick to the back from Han Li. Losing his balance, he rolled down the stairs.

As he rolled down, he clawed at the handrail, finally managing to steady himself. By then, Han Li had already walked up to him, poured the entire bottle of turpentine over him, and raised her hand, about to flick the lighter...

At that moment, the sharp, irritating smell of turpentine made the man's ferocity subside somewhat. He looked up at the little girl holding the lighter and began screaming in terror.

Fortunately, the hand Han Li had raised was pressed down by the art teacher who had rushed over.

At the same time, the security guards who came charging up from downstairs subdued the domestic abuser.

The sudden turn of events left the teachers in the corridor at a loss as to how to react. The art teacher took the lighter from Han Li's hand with trembling hands.

"It's too dangerous, turpentine is highly flammable..." Before the art teacher could finish speaking, Han Li nodded expressionlessly. "Mhmm, one spark and he's done for."

The art teacher stared at the seemingly harmless little girl in front of him in horror. "So... you wanted to burn him to death?"

Han Li nodded. "Mhmm."

The teacher's mouth fell open. "Kill...killing is wrong."

Han Li tilted her head slightly. "What's wrong about it? His death is the optimal solution."

Xiaofei remembered that the matter had caused quite a stir afterwards. Han Li's parents were, of course, called in, but the school didn't discipline her, instead they required her to see a psychologist and attend some behavioural correction classes.

Han Li really did attend classes for a few days...

When Zhan Zhao heard that Han Li had taken Tian Ming's classes as a child, he was also extremely surprised. He never expected it...

"What do you think of him as a person?" Zhan Zhao asked Han Li.

"He was all right, but I only attended two days of classes before my dad stopped them," Han Li recalled. "At the time, my dad asked the school to switch me to a female psychologist, and the school complied."

Zhan Zhao was curious. "Why did your father have you change psychologists? Did he have any contact with Tian Ming?"

Han Li thought back. "When he was picking me up and dropping me off, the two of them had run into each other. After the first day of classes, my dad asked me what I thought of the psychologist. I said the doctor was quite good, and the first day of treatment was very easy, just watching cartoons, eating snacks, and chatting."

Zhan Zhao felt that there was nothing wrong with that. With much younger patients, communication was usually kept as relaxed as possible.

"Dad asked me whether that psychologist looked a bit like him," Han Li gave a reason that was somewhat hard to understand. "I said he did... After Dad heard that, he said he thought so too, then said he didn't like that doctor and told me not to have any further contact with him."

As Han Li's doctor, Zhan Zhao was fairly familiar with her condition.

Although Han Li has antisocial personality traits, she has a very high IQ and an excellent memory. However, her memories of Tian Ming didn't seem particularly "old", on the contrary, they felt somewhat "fresh".

Out of a certain instinct, Wen Xiaorou also felt as though Han Li might have seen Tian Ming recently, so she asked, "Have you seen him recently?"

Han Li actually nodded. "I saw him in the mountains last year."

"In the mountains?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled, and Bai Yutang was equally confused – Tian Ming has officially been dead for a long time, and according to Cat's deductions, he should've been in the T Zone. Is our inference wrong? Or has he only gone into hiding there recently? If it's a recent development, then it will most likely be connected to the Shi Yanshuo case.

"It was last year, I was taking a few students into the mountains to practise high-altitude rope descent, and I ran into him leading a group doing some kind of outdoor spiritual retreat..." Han Li replied.

"Spiritual retreat..." Zhu Yi and the others instinctively felt that it sounded like some kind of cult activity.

"Did the two of you talk at the time?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"We exchanged a few words, he even asked whether I wanted to join their spiritual retreat programme, but I remembered that my dad really disliked him, so I didn't stay in contact afterwards."

"Do you have his contact information?"

Han Li took out her phone, scrolled through her contacts, found a number, and read it out to Zhan Zhao.

Bai Yutang immediately had Jiang Ping investigate the number, with a focus on checking whether Fang Beibei or Shi Yanshuo had ever been in contact with it.

And it turned out that they really had. Last year, Fang Beibei had had frequent call records with that number, and Shi Yanshuo had also contacted it several times.

"Could Fang Beibei have joined one of his spiritual retreats as well, and that's how the two of them got in touch?" Zhan Zhao felt that if Tian Ming had really "come back to life" and got a new job, becoming a cult leader would actually suit him quite well...

"Has Tian Ming's appearance changed?" Zhan Zhao felt that he should have had cosmetic surgery. Could it be that he still looks the same? Is he not afraid of being recognised?

"Hmm..." Han Li thought for a moment. "He was a bit different, I suppose, but his overall presence hadn't changed at all. I recognised him at a glance anyway."

With the phone number in hand, Jiang Ping quickly uncovered a lot of information, even Tian Ming's movements over the past few years were laid out clearly. He had been active in K City the entire time, and they also found some photographs.

Tian Ming now went by the name Jin Ming. Last year, he had been arrested for cult activities, fraud, and murder, and was currently being held in the T Zone.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao stared at the information Jiang Ping had sent over. Too many leads had surfaced all at once, leaving both of them somewhat caught off guard, especially since Tian Ming's identity had been uncovered so easily and smoothly that it felt strangely unreal.

"It just feels like something's not quite right..." Zhan Zhao scratched his head.

Bai Yutang suggested that he discuss it with Zhao Jue.

Wen Xiaorou asked, "Do I still need to interrogate Fang Beibei?"

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment. "You and Han Li go and have a chat with her together."

Han Li was in the middle of her fourth coffee cocktail and was already half drunk. She was a little confused when she heard this. "Me too?"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Guys, finally, I caught up with the most recent chapter! This is such a milestone! From now on, I wil try to upload SCI within a week of a new chapter being released.

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: January 13, 2026 by Angel

Edited: January 20, 2026 by Angel