S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 1: Chapter 1
The Mice and the Cat
Early in the morning, the S City Police Department building was buzzing with excitement. People were gathered in small groups of twos and threes, whispering and discussing the newly established S.C.I.
When Wang Chao and Zhang Long walked into the building, they immediately sensed that the atmosphere was off. What was going on with everyone?
With prominent dark circles around their eyes like pandas, the two of them were visibly sleep-deprived, having just wrapped up a major case the previous night. Walking over to the elevator bank, they noticed a white slip of paper posted on the wall. Zhang Long reached out and ripped it down, cursing, "Who has the sheer audacity to post flyers inside a police station?"
Leaning over to take a look, Wang Chao muttered, "Doesn't look like an advertisement... Is this signed by the Chief?"
Stepping into the elevator, the two men held the slip of paper before their eyes and studied it closely.
Ten seconds later, two thunderous roars echoed from inside the elevator, startling the waiting crowd outside so badly that they scrambled backward.
With a soft chime, the elevator doors opened on the seventh floor.
Zhang Long and Wang Chao came lunging out of the elevator like a pair of ferocious wolves, shouting at the top of their lungs, "This is madness!" They charged straight toward the office of the Major Crimes Unit, drawing sideways glances from all the surrounding police personnel.
With a loud kick, the office door flew open with a crash, sending the officers inside scrambling in a panic to find cover behind their desks.
But the two men who burst in didn't give anyone so much as a glance. They drove straight toward the inner office belonging to the Captain.
A split second before the impact, the office door opened on its own. Unable to brake in time, the two men tumbled right inside, hitting the floor and landing squarely on their stomachs.
With a loud thud...
Someone downstairs could be heard yelling out of a window toward the upper floors: "Can you guys in the Major Crimes Unit not give it a rest for just one day?! If you keep this up, no one in this building will even bother to run when a real earthquake hits!"
Zhang Long and Wang Chao scrambled up from the floor, only to see Bai Yutang holding a cup of coffee, leaning against his desk while looking at them with a half-smile.
"Captain, is this for real?!" Zhang Long asked, waving the slip of paper in his hand.
"What do you think?" Bai Yutang took a sip of his coffee, his reply nonchalant.
"Then... Then it's really true?" Wang Chao confirmed cautiously once more.
Giving a nod, Bai Yutang continued to sip his coffee.
After a brief moment of silence, a chorus of dramatic wailing erupted from the Major Crimes Unit office.
"Captain, you can't abandon us!"
"Captain, you can't just leave like this!"
"Wang Chao, Zhang Long, you guys can't leave either!"
"What are the brothers supposed to do if you leave us behind..."
The commotion prompted people from other departments to poke their heads out and gawk.
The Vice Squad: "What's wrong with the Major Crimes Unit? Did Captain Bai die in the line of duty?"
The Financial Crimes Division: "No way, right? I just saw him this morning, alive and kicking."
The Narcotics Division: "Oh, please. With a guy like Captain Bai, even the King of Hell wouldn't dare claim his soul."
Finishing the last sip of his coffee, Bai Yutang told Zhang Long and Wang Chao, "Pack your things. Follow me up to the eleventh floor this afternoon."
At ten minutes to one in the afternoon, amid the tearful laments of the Major Crimes Unit and the cheers of the remaining personnel on the seventh floor, Bai Yutang led Zhang Long and Wang Chao into the elevator and pressed the button for the eleventh floor.
As soon as the elevator doors parted, they were greeted by a pristine, brand-new office. The letters "S.C.I." etched onto the glass double doors gave it a distinct aura reminiscent of the FBI. Just as they stepped out, the chime of the adjacent elevator echoed through the hall. Everyone turned around to see a man walking out with one hand tucked into his suit trousers and the other holding a file folder, his steps remarkably elegant, unhurried, and poised.
Zhang Long and Wang Chao tensed up instantly, casting cautious glances at Bai Yutang. Sure enough... their captain's face had stiffened.
Approaching from a distance, Gongsun Ce saw Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glaring at each other at the elevator entrance and secretly found it amusing. Here they go again.
"Xiao Zhan, Xiao Bai... why aren't you going in?"
Wang Chao and Zhang Long swallowed hard in unison. Great, another eccentric has arrived!
The three individuals standing before them were no ordinary mortals. They were widely known as the Three Prodigies of the Police Force, considered the ultimate treasures of the S City Police Department.
First was Bai Yutang: his acquaintances called him Bai Lao Wu. This was not because he was the fifth child in his family, but because he represented the fifth generation of criminal investigators in the Bai family line.
The Bai family was legendary for producing master detectives. Bai Yutang's grandfather, father, uncles, and older brothers were all renowned criminal investigators, many of whom still held active high-ranking positions in the police and military sectors. As for Bai Yutang himself, he had inherited all the finest genes of his predecessors. After graduating from the military academy, he first joined the Air Force, where he underwent specialized elite training. Upon his discharge, he returned to S City to serve as the Captain of the Major Crimes Unit, breaking and solving countless major and high-profile cases over the span of a few short years.
Bai Yutang was exceptionally bold, possessed superb combat skills, and carried a quirky, unconventional personality. Under his leadership, the entire Major Crimes Unit exuded a fierce, lethal aura. Looking across the entire department, no one dared to cross them; others wouldn't even dare to breathe heavily when passing by the Major Crimes office doors.
Speaking of Bai Yutang, one could not leave out the other prodigy, Zhan Zhao.
He was the elegant young man who had just stepped out of the elevator. The reason these three were so famous, aside from their extraordinary capabilities, was a very simple one: all three possessed exceptionally striking looks, a fact that left other officers grinding their teeth in envy. This was particularly true for Zhan Zhao, whose clean, handsome features and tall, slender build—complemented by a perfectly tailored indigo-blue suit and the file folder cradled in his arm—made female onlookers from ages eight to eighty drool on the spot. If he were to give you a gentle, compliant smile, it would produce what Mother Bai called a "one-shot kill" effect.
Zhan Zhao was an internationally renowned Ph.D. in criminal psychology and a leading authority in his academic field despite his young age.
With an exceptionally high IQ, Zhan Zhao's academic journey had been a continuous streak of skipping grades. While he excelled in intellectual pursuits rather than martial skills, he had long provided professional consultations to the force, instrumental in cracking cases.
The history between Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang ran deep. In the words of Mother Zhan, the two of them had been at odds ever since they were in their mothers' wombs!
Why did Mother Bai and Mother Zhan keep coming up? Because the Zhan and Bai families lived directly across the hall from each other, and the two mothers had been best friends since primary school. By pure coincidence, the two babies were born around the same time, though Zhan Zhao arrived exactly one hour ahead of Bai Yutang. It was precisely this one-hour difference that forced Bai Yutang to spend eight miserable years calling him "Big Brother Xiao Zhan"... a lingering source of resentment.
The two were the epitome of childhood friends, yet how did they end up such bitter rivals? It all traced back to their kindergarten days. They had possessed an intense sense of rivalry since childhood; they would fight over each other's food at mealtime, snatch each other's pillows at bedtime, and as they grew older, they competed for the top rank in exams, vying to see who could skip grades faster. When Xiao Bai won a sanda martial arts championship, Xiao Zhan would secure a straight-A scholarship. They fought and competed like this all the way until one joined the military and the other went abroad. Yet, after taking entirely different paths around the world, they somehow wound up back together at the police department. It truly was a case of fated adversaries being destined to cross paths.
In Bai Yutang's eyes, Zhan Zhao was a far cry from the gentle and refined gentleman the public made him out to be—he was a thoroughly cunning and deceitful cat!
In Zhan Zhao's eyes, Bai Yutang was nowhere near the dashing and capable officer he appeared on the surface—he was the most obnoxious white mouse alive!
As for the man dressed in a white lab coat, refined and delicate, wearing a pair of rimless glasses and exuding the aura of a pure elite—that was Gongsun Ce.
Gongsun was a somewhat legendary forensic pathologist and a renowned anthropologist. During his time teaching at the university, he had actually instructed classes attended by both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang. However, in the eyes of the Zhan-Bai duo, this man who traversed the world with nothing but a scalpel looked precisely like a psychopathic serial killer.
And so, the three of them stood at the grand entrance of the S.C.I., staring each other down, until Director Bao Zheng finally lost his patience and bellowed from within: "What are you all doing standing around outside? Get in here for the meeting!”