S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 6 Chapter 159

The Wisteria Murderer 03 – Prejudice

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When Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang arrived at the SWAT building, they decided to first find an "old acquaintance" and ask around.

"Sister Zhao?" Wen Xiaorou was examining a new thermal imaging device when she heard that Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao suddenly wanted to find Zhao Mingxi from the archives department. She asked curiously, "What do you want with her? Has there been progress on that case?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang immediately picked up on the key point. "A case? What case?"

Wen Xiaorou narrowed her eyes and leaned back slightly. She said to Xiao Fei, who was studying the same machine behind her, "Looks like those two don't know."

Xiao Fei looked up and observed Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang for a moment, then nodded.

Wen Xiaorou tilted her head – Should we tell them?

Xiao Fei shook his head – Better to avoid trouble than to invite it.

Wen Xiaorou nodded, and the two continued studying the machine.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were speechless – How can the two of you be like this?!

Zhan Zhao pulled out the half-sheet missing person notice and waved it in front of them, "We're not looking for trouble. We just want to ask her about someone."

Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou both leaned in and studied the notice for a while, then exchanged a glance.

Click.

Wen Xiaorou and Xiao Fei turned round and saw Zhan Zhao taking a picture of them with his phone, holding it up as a threat, "If you two won't talk, I'll post this photo in the big group chat and start rumours that you're having an affair!"

Wen Xiaorou stared at Zhan Zhao in shock – You're actually spreading rumours!

Xiao Fei merely raised an eyebrow – Go ahead and spread it...

Setting down the machine, Wen Xiaorou picked up her meal card and said that she happened to be going to buy a milk tea anyway, so she might as well take them along.

The two followed Wen Xiaorou outside. Xiao Fei put down the machine as well and followed them out, reaching out to ask Zhan Zhao for the half-sheet missing person notice.

After leaving the SWAT building, the group headed towards the cafeteria.

Bai Yutang was still rather curious about where the archives department was. Xiao Fei pointed to a very old building beside the cafeteria, "Second floor over there."

Bai Yutang remembered that the building had originally been used by the SWAT team to store discarded equipment. It really did deserve the nickname "the exile department"...

"What's she like?" Bai Yutang was always fairly straightforward when talking to Xiao Fei.

Xiao Fei walked into the cafeteria with Bai Yutang, hands in his pockets. He jerked his chin at Wen Xiaorou, who had turned back to look at him, signalling that he wanted a yuanyang milk tea.

"I can't really say how she is." Xiao Fei thought for a moment, as if searching for the right words. "I haven't seen how she was before, but she doesn't look like a criminal investigator at all now."

"How serious was her mistake?" Bai Yutang felt that it was already difficult enough for a woman to become a criminal investigator. Most of the female officers in criminal investigation teams were exceptionally capable. As for people getting in through connections, surely they wouldn't choose a department like criminal investigations, where their lives were constantly at risk and there was little money to be made...

"Was there a mistake while handling a case?" Bai Yutang remembered that Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou had mentioned a case earlier.

Xiao Fei lowered his voice and said, "Her personnel file was sealed, ordinary people can't access it. I only know about it because my senior talked about it. His assessment of her was, 'a person's prejudice is a wall.'"

Bai Yutang was even more confused and asked, "Captain Fei said that?"

Xiao Fei nodded.

Captain Fei's real name was Fei Yang. He had originally been the captain of the criminal investigation team and, after retiring, had become an instructor at the police academy. He was well acquainted with Bai Yutang, Zhan Zhao and the others, and was a close friend of their fathers, Bai Yunwen and Zhan Qitian. Despite being a police officer, his surname was Fei, meaning "bandit". Both Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou were his students, which was why they called him Senior.

"Xiaorou calls her 'Sister Zhao', so Zhao Mingxi can't be that old..." Bai Yutang calculated her likely age. "Did she work with Captain Fei, or was she his student like you two?"

Xiao Fei shook his head. "The other day, I was having lunch with my senior in the cafeteria. Senior Zhao happened to pass by and stopped to say hello. Senior watched her walk away for a long time, and then suddenly came out with that line."

Originally, Bai Yutang had thought the missing person notice might have nothing to do with any case and that the resemblance could simply be a coincidence. But now the whole thing seemed increasingly unusual. Could it be that the wisteria they are looking for is connected to this...

"Wisteria?" Bai Yutang suddenly asked Xiao Fei.

Xiao Fei looked up at the sky – How did you get infected by Zhan Zhao too? Zhan Zhao had been pestering practically everyone in the police bureau's main group chat about Wisteria. Over the past few days, so many people had heard the name that they were probably dreaming about Wisteria at night.

"Oho! This milk tea is pretty good!" Zhan Zhao and Wen Xiaorou returned carrying drinks.

Wen Xiaorou had bought quite a lot. Besides a cup for Xiao Fei, she had also packed two slices of Swiss roll cake and two milk teas.

As they approached the old building, Bai Yutang suddenly looked up... A moment earlier, he thought he had seen a figure move,  as if someone had been standing behind a second-floor window watching them the entire time. The moment he looked up, the figure had darted away.

Rubbing his brow, Bai Yutang thought he might be overthinking it.

The old building didn't have an elevator. At the corner of the staircase was a small break room with its door left slightly ajar.

Wen Xiaorou pushed the door open and peeked inside. An old man was taking his afternoon nap. Wen Xiaorou quietly placed a slice of Swiss roll cake and a milk tea on the table, then closed the door again and led the others upstairs.

Both Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao recognised the old man, Old Xu. Don't let his ragged clothes and monk-like appearance fool you, he was actually the SWAT team's mechanical genius. He specialised in building equipment by hand and was responsible for all kinds of mechanical repairs. From drones to armoured vehicles, there was nothing he couldn't fix. Together with Jiang Ping and Fei Shou, he was known as one of the three great tech geeks of the police world. He was also one of Mia's regular gaming teammates.

However, the old man is addicted to sugar and probably has high blood sugar. He insists on taking a nap every day at noon without fail.

On the second floor, the first room was an office with its door open. Behind it were three records rooms, all of them locked.

Wen Xiaorou knocked on the office door and poked her head inside, "Sister Zhao!"

"Xiaorou'ah... Is there equipment damage that needs logging?"

Before Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had even entered the room, the warmth in the woman's voice gave a distinctly friendly impression.

"No, want some snacks?" Wen Xiaorou set the food down on the desk and pointed towards the doorway. Lowering her voice, she told Zhao Mingxi, "Someone's looking for you."

Zhao Mingxi looked up and saw Xiao Fei leading two handsome men through the door.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao might not know everyone in the police bureau or the SWAT building, but among people in this line of work, there were very few who didn't know who they were.

When Zhao Mingxi saw them, she paused slightly in surprise. "Captain Bai, Dr Zhan?"

Both men nodded and greeted her.

Bai Yutang observed Zhao Mingxi's expression. Her surprise didn't seem feigned, which meant the person who had been watching them from the window earlier was probably not her... Otherwise, her acting skills were far too good.

Zhan Zhao was also observing Zhao Mingxi, as well as her working environment.

She appeared to be in her thirties, slightly plump, with a gentle and approachable appearance.

The impression Zhan Zhao had of her was still based on the photograph in her personnel records from when she had first joined the force. Back then, she had been much slimmer, and now she didn't look like a police officer at all. Moreover, she probably has a young daughter, as there were many toys in the office, and on the desk, there were elementary school textbooks and a pink Lina Bell backpack.

Wen Xiaorou and Xiao Fei took their milk teas and sat down on a nearby sofa, leaving Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang to speak with Zhao Mingxi themselves.

Zhan Zhao explained that they had come across something while investigating a case and wanted to ask Zhao Mingxi about it.

"Oh..." Zhao Mingxi nodded, looking at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang. "What is it?"

Zhan Zhao handed her the half-sheet missing person notice while carefully watching her reaction.

The moment Zhao Mingxi took the notice, she froze, as if in a daze. Then she seemed to sink into some distant memory. Her expression, however, remained remarkably calm.

After a while, Zhao Mingxi set the half-sheet missing person notice down, opened the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled out a file folder, which she handed to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took the folder, and Bai Yutang leaned over to look.

When they opened the folder to the first page, they found a complete missing person notice.

The photograph of the girl on the missing person notice was now complete. She was a slightly plump, short-haired university student who wore glasses. Her name was Qiu Yizi, a first-year student in the Department of Foreign Literatures within the Faculty of Literature at S University. The missing person notice was from ten years ago. The girl had disappeared while out one day. At the time, she had been wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, carrying a black backpack and a camera, having gone out to take photographs.

Zhao Mingxi asked, "Have you found her?"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were surprised. "She still hasn't been found after ten years?"

Zhao Mingxi neither nodded nor shook her head, she simply looked at them and blinked.

"Is she no longer alive?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had a bad feeling about this. Could it have been a kidnapping and murder case?

"At the time, she'd just had a huge fight with her boyfriend and they were in the middle of breaking up. She took her camera out to clear her head... After that, she never returned to the university."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang stared at her – Did they investigate her boyfriend or not?

"Her boyfriend's name is Jin Wei. He was an athlete, tall, heavily built, and supposedly very hot-tempered. He disappeared as well," Zhao Mingxi continued. "Qiu Yizi was born in T City, a long way from here. Her parents divorced when she was very young and both remarried. Neither wanted custody of her, so she was raised by her grandmother. Before she took her university entrance examinations, her grandmother passed away, so she applied to S University, the university furthest from T City. She wanted a fresh start. She was an outstanding student. She was petite, only about one and a half metres tall. Not long after arriving at S University, she started dating Jin Wei. Jin Wei was over one metre eighty, tall and powerfully built, and a member of the university wrestling team."

The more Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang heard, the more convinced they became that the boyfriend sounded like the prime suspect.

"When I went to her dormitory to ask, her roommates said that before she left, Qiu Yizi had told them that she had broken up with Jin Wei, and Jin Wei said he would kill her. She was scared and was thinking of renting an apartment somewhere else for a while to avoid him."

As a police officer, Bai Yutang instinctively thought of several investigative directions. Apart from the boyfriend, Jin Wei, being a suspect, the lead about her looking for a place to rent was also important. When a woman rents a house on her own, she may have to view apartments with an estate agent or landlord and find herself alone with strangers in confined spaces. It was entirely possible that she had encountered someone dangerous while viewing a property. At the same time, Bai Yutang felt that the things the girl had said to her roommates before leaving sounded almost a little deliberate.

"The missing person notices were made by her classmates. Apparently, Qiu Yizi liked purple things and was especially fond of photographing wisteria, so her classmates went all over the city looking for places with wisteria to post the notices." Zhao Mingxi continued, "That was the first case I was assigned after becoming a criminal police officer. Since there was no body, it was treated as a missing person case for the time being, and there were quite a few leads to follow..."

At this point, Zhao Mingxi paused. "On the third night after Qiu Yizi disappeared, I received a distress call from her."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both surprised by the turn of events – A distress call?

"She said she'd been kidnapped by her boyfriend and locked in a basement. She'd managed to escape while he was asleep, and originally planned to return to the university, but her boyfriend had come after her. She'd seen one of her missing person notices and torn it down. At the time, she was hiding in a residential neighbourhood. She was terrified and asked whether I could come and pick her up..."

As Zhao Mingxi spoke, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both froze for a moment. Then, almost instinctively, they tilted their heads and stared at her. Were they being overly sensitive? There was something about that phone call and the way the events had unfolded... it felt slightly off.

Zhao Mingxi saw the reactions of the two and smiled slightly, "A person's prejudice is a wall. A good police officer develops suspicion before prejudice forms."

In an instant, Bai Yutang understood the comment Xiao Fei had mentioned earlier, the assessment Captain Fei had made of Zhao Mingxi. So that's what he had meant...

Zhan Zhao turned the first page of the file folder, which was the missing person notice. The second page was a wanted notice. – Qiu Yizi, wanted for the murder of two people and the serious injury of a police officer.

"It wasn't her boyfriend who kidnapped her, she killed her boyfriend."

Standing nearby, Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou had previously only heard a rough outline of the case, this was the first time they had heard such a detailed first-hand account. Both of them shook their heads repeatedly – Terrifying!

"She killed two people... who else?" Bai Yutang began. Then the answer occurred to him. "The landlord?"

Zhao Mingxi nodded. "A woman viewing a property alone with a landlord could be in danger... But a landlord taking a young woman to view a property could also be in danger."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both frowned – So she was looking for a place to rent in order to kill someone?

Xiao Fei and Wen Xiaorou huddled on the sofa, shaking their heads – What had that landlord ever done to deserve that... What dreadful luck.

‿︵‿︵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: June 10, 2026 by Angel

Edited: June 10, 2026 by Angel