S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 157

The Wisteria Murderer 01 – Other Things

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On Sunday morning, the bright and energetic Issel and Eleven arrived at Big Brother Bai's villa carrying breakfast.

Ever since the new chef duo had found a second spring in their careers, their enthusiasm for work had skyrocketed. Early that morning, they had got up to teach themselves how to make jianbing. The result, however, was so excessively healthy in flavour that Zhao Jue had thrown both them and their jianbings out.

Walking to the entrance of the villa, the two looked towards a tent set up in the yard.

At that moment, the tent's zip was pulled open, and a dishevelled man crawled out. He looked very much like Sadako crawling out of a television, if anything, Sadako seemed brighter and more cheerful of the two.

The new chef duo crouched down and locked eyes with the person who had just crawled out of the tent and raised his head.

Face to face, Issel clicked his tongue and shook his head. The man before them looked deathly pale, with two heavy dark circles under his eyes, and covered in cat hair...

In the villa, Bai Yutang was holding a coffee grinder and walking out when he saw this scene in the yard. The new chef duo were looking at the just-awakened Zhan Zhao with concern, "Young man, you need to pull yourself together, don't give up on yourself!"

Zhan Zhao remained silent for a long while before suddenly letting out an "Uh..." sound, as though he had finally woken up. Looking at the two uncles before him, he uttered one word in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, "Wisteria..."

"Huh?" The two uncles tilted their heads. "Wisteria? Stomach ache?"

Bai Yutang sighed and shook his head. It seemed that over the past few days, Zhan Zhao had truly become fixated on Wisteria.

Not long ago, they arrested a group of collectors, they'd rounded up a whole bunch of people and gathered a mountain of information. Yet at the final critical moment, they missed the mark. It wasn't exactly a total failure, but things ultimately became stuck at the point concerning Tian Ming and Xu Wei.

Zhan Zhao very much wanted to determine whether Tian Ming, as the collector, had never existed in the first place and Xu Wei had merely used his identity, or whether Tian Ming had originally been the collector, only to later be replaced or eliminated by Xu Wei...

What troubled Zhan Zhao the most, however, was the only clue Fang Beibei had given: "Wisteria Manor."

That unsolved case at the haunted residence dated back thirty years! Thirty years! By now, the case had practically become an urban legend. It was one that even Zhao Jue had failed to solve back then.

The files from thirty years ago could no longer be found, and the bodies had long since turned to ash.

Moreover, among the two bodies of escaped prisoners that the group had found in the woods of the T Zone, one had been a man in his sixties, known only by the alias "Zhang Dadan." He had been one of the "professionals" hired by the property company thirty years ago to exorcise Wisteria Manor, the only one who had survived, though driven mad.

If all of this had been orchestrated by Xu Wei, and her goal had been to make SCI investigate the Wisteria Manor murder case from back then, yet through a series of manipulations, she also caused the only survivor to die, then how were they supposed to investigate?

Moreover, although Zhan Zhao has a wide range of interests and a wealth of knowledge, his focus lies on subjects like psychology, philosophy, and mathematics. He has very little interest in botany.

Based on the information gathered so far, the legend suggests that the huge wisteria tree in the manor uses its vines to control the murderer to kill everyone around them before committing suicide. Is that even possible?

After returning to the police station, Zhan Zhao had dragged along Bai Chi and pored over countless files in the archives. Jiang Ping had searched up every piece of information he could find online, yet they still hadn't found another wisteria tree that could kill people. In other words, the only suspect at present was the large tree in the manor itself...

Everyone in SCI felt utterly speechless. After being police officers for so long, they had caught all sorts of bizarre killers, they never expected that this time the culprit would actually be a tree!

Over the past few days, every time Zhan Zhao opened his mouth, it was always about "Wisteria." A week had passed, and the cases provided by the collectors had all resulted in arrests, and every department was in high spirits. Many cold cases had been resolved, almost like clearing out old inventory. Only SCI remained shrouded in gloom, as if a cloud of resentment hung in the air.

On Saturday, Zhan Zhao had once again spent the entire day in the archives. Later, Bai Chi's family could no longer stand it, so Zhao Zhen went to Bai Yutang to protest. Finally, they managed to drag him out from the pile of files and take him to an amusement park to clear his mind.

Zhan Zhao had also been hauled home by Bai Yutang, but this was the trouble with having such a high IQ, if a puzzle couldn't be solved, it was like getting stuck, unable to move on to the next line of thought.

Last night, Zhan Zhao had originally slept well, but he woke up in the middle of the night, grabbed a laptop, and went outside into the tent, seemingly to look something up. He had fallen asleep again in the latter half of the night, only to end up covered in cats.

Uncle Chopsticks took out his phone, snapped a photo of Zhan Zhao, and sent it to Zhao Jue.

About three seconds later, Bai Yutang's phone rang, it was Zhao Jue calling.

When he answered, Zhao Jue didn't shout. He simply said that he and Bai Ye were going to choose a location for opening a restaurant that afternoon, and asked whether the two of them wanted to come along.

Bai Yutang was rather surprised. "Uncle Ye is really opening a restaurant?"

The new chef duo, who had been teasing Zhan Zhao with a strand of catnip, immediately looked up and raised their hands with cheerful smiles, indicating that they were also investing, they were going in on it together!

"Then let's all go take a look and grab a meal outside while we're out." Bai Yutang took Zhan Zhao, whose brain was overworked to the point he was practically in a cat-like state, back into the room to wash up and change, while the new chef duo went inside to prepare to share out the jianbings with the others.

Actually, there was no one else at home. Zhao Zhen and Bai Chi had gone to the amusement park, Big Brother Bai and Gongsun were staying out overnight, the twins were still asleep, and the kittens were in the tent. The only one in the living room was Lisbon.

Issel held a green jianbing, trying to lure Lisbon over. Lisbon sniffed it, then shook its head repeatedly, raising a big paw to cover its nose as if to block the smell.

......

In the neighbouring villa, Zhao Jue hung up the phone and let out an "Oh."

Bai Ye, who had just come back from feeding the dog, saw him holding his phone and tapping it against his chin, and asked, "What's wrong?"

Zhao Jue walked over to the table and sat down, his fingers interlocked under his chin, and slowly said, "In fact, the key to Wisteria Manor isn't just the wisteria."

Bai Ye found that reasonable. After all, it was called "Wisteria Manor", aside from the wisteria, there was also the manor itself.

Zhao Jue picked up the tablet on the table and brought up an aerial photograph of Wisteria Manor taken by a drone. "Back when we investigated the case, we didn't have drones. No one ever thought of taking an overhead shot of that haunted house."

Bai Ye walked over and glanced at the screen, then nodded... The manor, together with that enormous wisteria tree, formed the shape of a skull. It was clearly designed that way on purpose.

"Why design the house like that?" Bai Ye went to brew a cup of tea. He noticed a few green jianbings on the plate on the table, which inexplicably piqued his curiosity. Using chopsticks, he picked up a small piece and tasted it. After trying it, Uncle Ye wore a baffled expression... Why did everything those two cooked always have no flavour?

"And the more official name of Wisteria Manor is actually House of Vines. I remember that when we went in to investigate thirty years ago, aside from the wisteria, there were many other vines in the courtyard. Every wall was covered with climbing roses, the roof was full of bougainvillaea, and there were many other climbing plants in the yard. The entire manor was practically enveloped in vines... It's just that most of the vines died after the place was abandoned. Only that wisteria kept growing bigger and bigger."

"Why plant so many vines?" Bai Ye was somewhat puzzled.

"And given the density of the vines back then, if you looked down from above, it probably wouldn't have been shaped like this skull." Zhao Jue analysed the aerial image. "The gaps between the buildings, if you ignore that wisteria, don't really look like a skull. Instead, it looks more like a light bulb."

Bai Ye nodded. "Indeed, the wisteria played a significant role, it essentially outlined the two most important eye sockets of the skull."

"So, in other words, there wasn't originally a skull back then, it only formed recently. A tree can grow quite large in thirty years." Zhao Jue muttered to himself, then added, "So are we really supposed to investigate a case from thirty years ago?"

"Are we even sure 'Wisteria Manor refers to that haunted house?" Bai Ye remarked casually while making tea. "Do you remember when we investigated that missing noblewoman case? We spent ages on it, only to find out that the so-called noblewoman was a painting, not a person."

Zhao Jue had been staring blankly at the tablet, but upon hearing this, he suddenly looked up at Bai Ye for a moment, then reached out and snatched his tea to drink.

With a helpless expression, Bai Ye poured himself another cup, taking out his phone to look at the floor plans of several shops.

Zhao Jue thought for a moment and decided to check on the two youngsters, so he dragged Bai Ye along to the neighbouring villa to find Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

......

By the time the two of them arrived at Big Brother Bai's villa, they saw Issel and Eleven lounging on the sofa, helping themselves to coffee.

Bai Yutang was also standing nearby with a cup of coffee in hand. The three of them were all staring at Zhan Zhao, who was sitting alone on the opposite sofa, slowly nibbling at a jianbing.

All three wore worried expressions. Zhan Zhao, having just showered, looked clean and refreshed, yet his spirits were still low. His eyelids drooped as he lazily nibbled at a green jianbing.

Lisbon was hiding behind Bai Yutang, and the king of beasts gazed at Zhan Zhao eating the jianbing with an expression full of awe.

Zhao Jue and Bai Ye both looked at Bai Yutang – What's going on with this cat?

Bai Yutang sighed, picked up a jianbing with his chopsticks and gave it a sniff. There was a strong smell of spinach. He took a bite and nodded silently – Indeed, it's tasteless.

Setting his coffee aside, Bai Yutang sat down beside Zhan Zhao and ate the jianbing with him.

Even the new chef duo sitting opposite couldn't help asking, "Is it good?"

The two of them nodded mechanically. If you ate it long enough, you could just about taste a hint of salt.

Issel and Eleven both turned to look at Bai Ye and Zhao Jue – Has work pressure really reached this level?

"Haah~"

At that moment, the sound of yawning came from upstairs, the twins were awake.

Da Ding and Xiao Ding were also off today, planning to come downstairs for breakfast before heading out to enjoy a leisurely day...

Coming down the stairs and seeing Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang eating jianbings, the two of them each grabbed a green jianbing from the plate and stuffed it into their mouths. The result, "Pff..."

Bai Ye and Zhao Jue watched as the twins stuck out their tongues, spitting repeatedly with "Ptui, ptui, ptui". Now that was the normal reaction!

"You two, are your taste buds out of whack?" The twins looked at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang with concern.

Zhan Zhao suddenly sighed, looking as though he had come to his senses. Setting the jianbing down, he asked the twins, "Wisteria Manor, what comes to mind for you two?"

The twins naturally knew about it, after all, they had tagged along when Laughing Bird had been captured.

"That haunted house?"

"Wasn't Big Brother thinking of buying it back then?"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked up at this. "You mean you two talked him out of it at the time?"

The twins nodded. "There were just too many deaths connected to that place, it was unbearable. Otherwise, it would actually have been a guaranteed profit. And according to the property company, there were quite a lot of antiques inside, all of them valuable."

Bai Yutang thought back for a moment. "We didn't see any when we went there before."

"They were all put away, of course. If they'd been left in an abandoned house, they'd have been stolen long ago. But the owner of that place was quite strange, since the house wouldn't sell back then, he could have sent the antique collection to an auction house! But no, he insisted on selling the entire property together with everything inside as a package. And according to the rumours, the problem lay with those antiques, not the house itself."

"Antiques?" Bai Yutang frowned slightly. "Do they come with curses or something?"

The twins spread their hands. "Probably."

"A curse?" Zhan Zhao suddenly looked up. "Like The Woman in the Rain? If someone happened to buy a painting that had been tampered with, poison in the canvas, pigments, or frame, something hallucinogenic, prolonged exposure could indeed cause hallucinations and drive a person mad... Were there paintings among the collection?"

Bai Yutang also felt this sounded more plausible than some haunted house curse, the most likely cause for a killer going mad would be poisoning.

The twins shrugged again, saying they hadn't asked in detail, but the interior décor of the house was European-style, so there were probably a few oil paintings hanging inside.

Zhan Zhao suddenly perked up, muttering to himself, "Could it be that 'Wisteria Manor' doesn't refer to that haunted house at all... but to a particular antique... or something else entirely?"

‿︵‿︵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: May 3, 2026 by Angel

Edited: May 3, 2026 by Angel