S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 156

Special Files – Collector 41 – The Only Connection

---

"Where would someone have to hide to make absolutely sure they wouldn't be discovered?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang came down the mountain, got into the car, and left the resort.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Zhan Zhao looked at his tablet while muttering to himself.

Bai Yutang also felt that finding this plastic surgeon called "Xu Wei" was the key to the case. "If she's hiding that securely, then why would Fang Beibei still take the risk to kill Guan Xiaoyue?"

"Security checks are in place to enter the SCI building, right?" Zhan Zhao looked up. "And the SWAT building next door must have them too?"

Bai Yutang nodded. "Yeah, and more than one."

"Then if there was a person inside Fang Beibei's suitcase, there's no way she could've taken it inside to find Wen Xiaorou..." Zhan Zhao murmured to himself.

"Even if she managed to get past security," Bai Yutang said with certainty, "if there had been a person in that suitcase, Wen Xiaorou was in the room at the time, and Xiao Fei was by the door, with how sharp they both are, there's no way they wouldn't have noticed, unless the suitcase contained a dead body..."

"A dead body..." Zhan Zhao frowned slightly. "What kind of person can never be found?"

"Don't tell me Xu Wei is already dead?" Bai Yutang asked. "Then why did Fang Beibei kill Guan Xiaoyue?"

"Even a dead person leaves a body to be found," Zhan Zhao muttered. "These days, disposing of a corpse is harder than killing someone, and hiding a dead person is even harder than hiding a living one."

As the two were talking, a message came through from Jiang Ping. "Boss! Something's happened in the T Zone!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both jolted – What we have been expecting has finally come!

"What happened?"

"A jailbreak!" Jiang Ping was shouting on his end. "A patient and a doctor's assistant have been killed, and three others have escaped!"

"Which patient was killed?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked almost in unison.

"Jin Ming." Jiang Ping had just received the list from T Zone. "Also, a nurse responsible for that floor was killed. There were four patients on that level in total, the other three have escaped."

"How did they escape?" Bai Yutang found it hard to believe. Security in the T Zone was strictly managed, there were three layers of perimeter walls alone. How could they possibly have escaped from the building, let alone three of them at once?

"The hospital says they still don't know how the escape happened, but it's confirmed, two dead, three missing. They've already requested support from the SWAT team!" As Jiang Ping was speaking, Zhan Zhao's phone rang, it was Bao Sir.

As Zhan Zhao picked up the call, Bai Yutang drove out of the resort and headed towards T Zone.

......

In the observation room next to the interrogation room at the police station, Wen Xiaorou and Han Li watched Fang Beibei for a while and felt it was about time to go in and have a word with her. Just then, Xiao Fei received a call on the operations line.

"Someone's escaped from the T Zone..." Xiao Fei glanced at the operation order and was taken aback.

Wen Xiaorou, who had only just steeled herself, widened her eyes in shock – An escape? Aren't the ones held there all psychopaths? How many got out?

Wen Xiaorou quickly contacted Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao said that he and Bai Yutang were already on their way to the T Zone with the rest of the SCI team. He told Xiao Fei to lead a team over as well, while she and Han Li were to continue interrogating Fang Beibei and try to extract as much information as possible about Xu Wei.

Han Li and Wen Xiaorou exchanged a glance, both feeling the difficulty of that task.

"Perhaps this is exactly the moment Fang Beibei has been waiting for," Zhan Zhao suddenly said.

Bai Yutang in the car, and Wen Xiaorou on the other end of the line, both froze for a moment.

"Cat... do you think Xu Wei is connected to this escape at T Hospital?"

"Jin Ming is dead... and a medical staff member has also been killed, likely his contact. Three patients have escaped, one of them might be Tian Ming, or perhaps none of them are," Zhan Zhao murmured to himself. "But these three people may be very difficult to find. Even if we do find them, we might only ever find two. We'll never be able to find a person who is already dead, or someone who doesn't even exist..."

Bai Yutang listened to Zhan Zhao muttering to himself, and as always, every individual word made sense, yet strung together, they were baffling. And yet, a certain theory seemed to be on the verge of emerging, as if...

After a brief silence, a chilling thought suddenly struck Bai Yutang. "Tian Ming never existed. Xu Wei is the collector. She used Jin Ming as a stand-in for Tian Ming, creating a completely nonexistent 'collector' as her identity? Jin Ming is dead, so Tian Ming has 'shed his skin and escaped', and the collector has vanished... Some of those killers were captured by Uncle Ye and the others, but the remaining information is still in the collector's hands. We'll never catch Tian Ming, because he never existed. The one who exists is Xu Wei, and she's already escaped... Her only remaining connection to the world might be Fang Beibei."

Bai Yutang also started talking to himself.

On the other end of the line, Wen Xiaorou and Han Li were bewildered... What kind of incantation are these two chanting? Still, Bai Yutang's "muttering" was clearly a bit easier to understand than Zhan Zhao's.

The two of them more or less got the idea.

"So Fang Beibei tried to kill Guan Xiaoyue back then because the collector deliberately handed her over to us?" Bai Yutang sighed. "We'd definitely keep her alive and protect her, because she's the only link to the collector?"

"We don't know what Xu Wei is like now, or what her identity is." Zhan Zhao sighed, just like Bai Yutang.

Just then, a notification suddenly popped up on the phone, a new email had arrived from the same address that had sent the electronic tickets before.

......

At the same time, Zhao Jue received the email as well.

Having been stood up, Zhao Jue had no choice but to head down the mountain with his people.

At the foot of the mountain, he ran into Bai Ye, who had returned "laden with spoils".

The "chef duo" were busy calculating their "bonus" when Zhao Jue got off the bus, still feeling quite displeased. He was just thinking he could tell Bai Ye that the whole bonus thing was a lie, and have him go back and tie those two youngsters up for a good beating to vent his frustration.

Just then, the notification sound for a new email rang out.

Zhao Jue opened it, and this time, it contained a download link.

Clicking on the link brought up a folder. Inside were a large number of files, all on various murderers, including the "Yellow Raincoat" killer.

......

Zhan Zhao opened the files one by one. They contained extremely detailed information on the criminals, not just videos of their crimes, but all kinds of evidence, their current identities, locations, and even real-time tracking data...

Over on Jiang Ping's end, all the received information had been forwarded to the respective local police departments...

By the time Bai Yutang's car pulled up in front of the T Zone, they had already begun receiving feedback from police forces across different regions, and serial killers were being apprehended one after another.

"Is this all of them, or just a portion?" As Zhan Zhao got out of the car, he received another message from Jiang Ping – Laughing Bird, who had previously faked his death and escaped, had also been caught.

"Has she cleared out her entire collection?" Bai Yutang saw Xiao Fei getting out of a SWAT vehicle ahead and greeting them, so he raised a hand in response.

Zhan Zhao frowned as he stared at the list of captured serial killers. "Hard to say. A collector's obsession, isn't something that can't be stopped."

"Stopped?" Bai Yutang still didn't quite understand. "As in suddenly no longer interested in collecting?"

At that moment, Xiao Fei gestured to Bai Yutang, signalling for everyone to head into the woods outside the hospital.

Ma Han had just taken a call and came over to report, "Captain, there are two bodies in the woods, wearing patient uniforms. Their identities are yet to be confirmed."

"Weren't three supposed to have escaped? There are only two bodies?" Bai Yutang glanced at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao gave a small "oh" and asked, "Did the surveillance cameras capture the escape?"

Ma Han said that Luo Tian and Qin Ou had gone to the monitoring room.

As he spoke, Zhao Hu had just hung up a call and came over. "Qin Ou said there's an issue with the surveillance, it looks like it cut in and out. The deaths of Jin Ming and the medical staff member weren't recorded, but the escape of two prisoners was captured."

"What about the third prisoner?" Bai Yutang asked, puzzled.

"The hospital says it might be a 'ghost' prisoner."

Bai Yutang frowned.

Zhan Zhao was familiar with the situation in the T Zone. There were indeed some so-called "ghost" prisoners inside, prisoners whose names and case files existed in the T Zone's records, but who were in reality either detained elsewhere or didn't exist at all. Some prisoners might have been minor offenders turned witnesses, others could even be undercover agents. To prevent retaliation, their original identities were listed as serving time in the T Zone, while their real selves changed names and started new lives elsewhere.

In the T Zone's records, only the "ghost" identity appeared, accessing their true identities required a higher level of clearance.

"If they're a ghost, then why would they escape?" Bai Yutang didn't understand. "Because all the rooms are registered on this floor?"

Zhan Zhao thought that was possible. The security system on that floor had been shut down, so all the patients there could have escaped... Indeed, two of them had, but why had they ended up dead in the woods? Had there been an ambush?

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao followed the SWAT team into the woods. Just then, Zhan Zhao's phone pinged again with a new email. Opening it, he saw another list...

But this one contained only names, no link. There were ten entries, each labelled as a "XX killer", with nothing but names.

Zhan Zhao showed the phone to Bai Yutang.

"What does it mean?" Bai Yutang asked. "Is someone trying to make an exchange?"

Zhan Zhao thought it was possible, but after waiting a while, no further emails came through.

Zhan Zhao felt that this "deal" would likely have to be extracted from Fang Beibei.

Opening the interrogation room surveillance feed, he saw that Wen Xiaorou and Han Li had already entered. Zhan Zhao put his headphones on to listen to what Fang Beibei would say.

......

Inside the interrogation room, Fang Beibei raised her head and looked at Wen Xiaorou and Han Li as they sat down in front of her. She tilted her head slightly, seemingly puzzled – Why are you two here?

Wen Xiaorou felt a bit awkward as well. After sitting down with Han Li, she scratched her head, wondering how to approach the situation. Zhan Zhao had said to focus on asking about Xu Wei.

"Who is Xu Wei?"

Wen Xiaorou was still thinking it over when Han Li, sitting beside her, took a more direct approach and asked the question outright.

Fang Beibei smiled faintly. "My aunt."

Wen Xiaorou and Han Li both nodded, So they really are related.

In the observation room next door, Ma Xin was holding a cup of milk tea, watching the interrogation with Gongsun, who was also going through the new emails and arrest lists sent over by Jiang Ping.

"Looks like Fang Beibei is the contact Xu Wei left for us," Gongsun frowned. "What do they want us to exchange for the remaining ten killers?"

"Have you found your dad?"

At that moment, Fang Beibei spoke, addressing Han Li.

Han Li looked at her and nodded.

"So what exactly do you want?" Wen Xiaorou asked, confused.

Fang Beibei shrugged. "It's not us, it's my aunt. I'm just trying to cooperate with the police as much as possible to get a reduced sentence."

Han Li and Wen Xiaorou exchanged a glance, then both nodded. "Then what does your aunt want?"

"Wisteria Manor," Fang Beibei said.

"Wisteria Manor?" In the next room, both Gongsun and Ma Xin were immediately drawn in by the answer.

Even Zhan Zhao, listening through his headphones elsewhere, frowned.

"What do you mean?" Wen Xiaorou didn't understand. "Your aunt wants that haunted house?"

Fang Beibei shook her head. "She only told me that if you asked about her, I should just say the two words 'Wisteria Manor'."

After saying that, Fang Beibei fell completely silent, refusing to say anything further.

......

In the woods, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang saw the two bodies lying on the ground.

Around each of their necks was a length of wisteria vine.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC |

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: March 26, 2025 by Angel

Edited: March 26, 2026 by Angel