S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 3: Chapter 20

The Magic Killer 20 - The Final Curtain (Case Closed)  

Bai Chi was inexplicably summoned downstairs by the twins, who claimed they had a gift for him... The rest of the S.C.I. crew curiously followed along. Parked right at the entrance of the police station was an adorable little car—a yellow Beetle, with a few roly-poly Machinima Rabbit stickers plastered on the door~~~

Staring blankly at the car for quite a while, Bai Chi asked the twins in a daze, “This... is for me?!”

“That's right~~~” The twins nodded vigorously. “You helped us make so much money, so this is a gift for you~~~”

Little Bai Chi wore a bitter, twisted expression, not knowing whether to accept it or refuse it. The other members of S.C.I. were doubled over with laughter, while Bai Yutang looked at the twins in admiration. “You two are truly something else~~~ If he drives a car like this out in public, the police force's image will be utterly ruined.”

“I don't like this kind~~~” Bai Chi whispered.

The twins exchanged glances and asked Bai Chi, “Then what style do you like? We searched high and low and figured this one matched your personality best~~~”

Bai Chi wrinkled his nose, raised his head to look around, and suddenly pointed at a massive black Jeep driving past in the distance. “I like that style~~~ The big one, the kind that looks very masculine when you drive it.”

“Pfft~~~” No matter how the others listened to it, hearing the word “masculine” come out of Bai Chi's mouth was deeply comical!

Zhan Zhao suddenly patted Bai Yutang, signaling him with his eyes to look at the approaching Jeep.

The vehicle came to a stop not far ahead of the crowd. The door opened, and a man hopped out, his left arm wrapped in a plaster cast—Zhao Zhen.

Bai Chi had already scampered over in sheer delight, though of course not toward Zhao Zhen, but straight toward Lisboa in the back seat~~~

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged glances and walked toward Zhao Zhen in unison.

“What do you want with me?” Zhao Zhen asked Bai Chi.

Bai Chi rubbed Lisboa's head. “It's not me looking for you... it's them.” With that, he pointed toward the approaching Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao had just instructed Bai Chi to send Zhao Zhen a text message telling him to come to the police station immediately~~~ He hadn't expected him to show up this fast.

Zhao Zhen looked at the two men standing before him and shrugged helplessly. “I know what you're suspecting... If you want my help, give me evidence!”

Bai Yutang smiled. “If you can't produce evidence, are you going to go against your conscience and shield a killer?!”

Zhao Zhen gave a bitter laugh. “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?!”

Bai Yutang sneered. “If I were in your shoes, I would have spoken up ten years ago!”

“...” Zhao Zhen was slightly startled, then fell silent.

Seeing the palpable tension between the two, Zhan Zhao turned his head and shot Bai Yutang a meaningful look, gesturing for him not to lose his temper just yet.

Stepping aside, Bai Yutang grabbed Bai Chi by the arm and retreated a few paces, leaving Zhan Zhao and Zhao Zhen to talk privately.

“Yutang is just that kind of temperament,” Zhan Zhao smiled at Zhao Zhen. “Sharp as a knife.”

Zhao Zhen glanced at Zhan Zhao and shook his head. “It's fine. By comparison, your needle hidden in silk is even harder to handle.”

Instead of getting angry, Zhan Zhao chuckled. “You know I have evidence~~~ Bai Chi!”

A subtle change flickered across Zhao Zhen's face. “That's hard to use as actual evidence; it can only serve as the basis for your suspicions!”

“Correct!” Zhan Zhao nodded. “That's precisely why we need your cooperation.”

“I refuse.” Zhao Zhen tried to call Lisboa back, but before he could, Zhan Zhao interrupted, “Do you know that he is already out of control?”

“...What do you mean?”

“Sun Qian's death proves that you no longer have any leash on him.” Zhan Zhao gazed straight ahead, speaking almost to himself. “He's going to kill again soon~~~ As long as you are out of his sight for more than a day, he won't be able to restrain himself... There will be another Sun Qian immediately~~~”

Zhao Zhen's expression turned somewhat pale as he looked at Zhan Zhao and asked, “Away for a day... what does that mean?!”

Zhan Zhao stared at Zhao Zhen for a moment, then asked coldly, “Don't tell me you haven't seen him for a full day already~~~”

Zhao Zhen hesitated briefly before finally giving a nod.

Zhan Zhao's expression instantly hardened. “That means you either help us catch him right now, or you wait for a second child's corpse to be discovered.”

After pondering in silence for a long moment, Zhao Zhen opened his car door and retrieved a device resembling a navigation unit.

Zhan Zhao motioned to Bai Yutang, and Bai Yutang led the S.C.I. team forward.

“Is this a satellite tracker?” The Ding twins, who were intimately familiar with unconventional electronic gadgets, cried out in surprise.

Zhao Zhen nodded. “I bought it recently. To keep him from acting recklessly, I slipped it onto him when he wasn't paying attention.”

He pressed a button, quickly locking onto the target. The precise location displayed on the screen was—the City S Cemetery.

A sharp snap echoed out as everyone turned around to see Lu Fang drop his entire folder of documents onto the ground, his eyes wide with stark terror.

“What's wrong?” A bad premonition gripped the group.

“Lu... Lu Zhen...” Lu Fang's voice trembled uncontrollably. “Lu Zhen arranged to go to the cemetery with several other kids today to sweep Sun Qian's grave...”

“To the cemetery, right now!” Bai Yutang gave the order, sprinting toward his car alongside Zhan Zhao, with Lu Fang trailing closely behind. Zhao Zhen hopped into his own vehicle, carrying Lisboa and Bai Chi... Together, the group sped toward the City S cemetery at breakneck speed.

Just as they reached the peak of the cemetery hill, the shrill screams of children pierced the air... Down in an open clearing below, five or six children sat huddled back-to-back in a circle, while a hunched figure paced busily around them.

With his sharp eyesight, Bai Yutang spotted the man using a sharp knife to slash open his own wrist, using the blood spilling onto the ground to draw a diagram around the children.

Some of the children were crying and screaming, their hands bound behind their backs, though none of them appeared to be injured yet.

One of the children looked up and caught sight of the arriving group, immediately shaking his head at Bai Yutang who was running in the lead, his eyes shifting toward the man's waist...

The child making the silent signal was Lu Zhen. Following his line of sight, the team spotted a handgun tucked into the man's trouser pocket.

Bai Yutang signaled everyone to disperse. By then, the man had keenly sensed their arrival. He let out a low, raspy chuckle, drew the pistol, and pointed it at the children.

Zhan Zhao took a step forward and said to him, “Stop resisting—Butler Meng.”

Standing before them was a lean, elderly man—none other than the veteran butler from Zhao Zhen's household.

“How should we address you?” Bai Yutang asked.

“...Zhao Meng...” The butler replied with zero warmth in his voice. He turned his gaze toward Zhao Zhen standing off to the side and smiled. “Young Master, I've raised you for twenty years~~~ Is this how you betray me to the police?”

Zhao Zhen stared at the butler and the terrified children surrounding him for a long, quiet moment before finally speaking: “Turn yourself in~”

“Heh-heh~~~” Zhao Meng laughed softly without answering, shifting his eyes back to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang. “Consider yourselves lucky. I was betrayed, otherwise you would never have figured out it was me, not in a million years.”

Zhan Zhao sneered. “Don't flatter yourself. Zhao Zhen only helped us track you down~~~ As for the fact that you were the real mastermind, we already knew.”

“What?” Zhao Meng's face filled with suspicion. “How did you figure it out?!”

“At the very beginning, we made a massive miscalculation regarding your profile~~~” Zhan Zhao said slowly. “We were misled by the interwoven nature of the cases, assuming the killer's behavior was a form of evolution, which is why we never suspected you... But once the case was thoroughly sorted out, we realized the truth: it wasn't evolution at all, but rather a degeneration.”

“What?!” Color drained from Zhao Meng's face. “Degeneration?!”

“That's right!” Zhan Zhao sneered. “The evolution of a serial killer implies that their killing behavior begins to exhibit selectivity and a certain internal 'philosophy,' meaning such killers are usually at the peak of their physical and mental prime. Degeneration, on the other hand, manifests as randomness in the choice of targets, and the crimes become increasingly crude because the killer's capabilities are declining—you are old!”

Seeing a flash of irritation cross Zhao Meng's eyes, Zhan Zhao smiled again. “Ten years means nothing to someone under fifty, but for someone past seventy, it's a completely different story—ten years ago, you were in your fifties and could freely pick your targets; but ten years later, approaching seventy, you couldn't kill anyone except young children. Coupled with the fact that you had full access and opportunity to study the magic array diagrams...”

“And another thing~~~” Bai Yutang added. “According to our investigation, you originally stayed in the country. Ten years ago, following the death of Zhao Zhen's parents, you suddenly went abroad to continue looking after his daily life—when you eliminate all the impossibilities, whatever remains, no matter how absurd, must be the truth!”

“And then, you committed one more grave mistake!” Zhan Zhao stated. “You shouldn't have attacked Bai Chi!”

...Zhao Meng stared intently at the two men: “What do you mean by that?!”

Zhan Zhao explained: “Because we already suspected you, I started wondering: why target Bai Chi? He must have stumbled upon something! At this stage, everyone is investigating the case and is hyper-sensitive to clues, but he hadn't made any special discoveries recently—which means it happened in the past! He inadvertently stumbled upon a clue without even realizing it~~~ And when you met him again recently, you realized Bai Chi's memory was too sharp, making him a threat! So I asked him about some details from ten years ago—guess what I found out?!”

Zhao Meng smiled. “When I was drawing the magic array diagram, Lisboa came over and caused a ruckus. That day, it lay right on top of the wet diagram I had just finished, getting the ink all over its body. Later on, it ran off, and I chased it all the way to the library, only to find this kid playing with Lisboa, and the Young Master was there too...”

Bai Chi shook his head in bewilderment. “I... I don't remember that at all~~~”

Zhao Meng froze for a second, caught sight of the slightly cunning smile playing on Zhan Zhao's lips, and gritted his teeth. “You played me... you brat...”

“Why?” Zhao Zhen interrupted him. “Why did you kill people?”

Zhao Meng looked at Zhao Zhen with a laugh that bordered on madness. “Because... after Master Jue left, life became simply too boring~~~”

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were momentarily stunned—Master Jue~~~~

“I always looked after Master Jue,” Zhao Meng laughed. “I watched him grow up; he is a genius... But a genius like that was arrested and locked away. Bored out of my mind, I started studying the notes he left behind and discovered the magic array diagrams~~~ Such wonderfully fascinating things, truly~~~”

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances. To think Zhao Meng had such a close connection to Zhao Jue—through him, there was a high likelihood of uncovering the true facts of what happened back then.

“And so I started killing, killing many~~~ many people, but life was still boring...” As he spoke, he gazed fixedly at Zhao Zhen. “Until you slowly grew up, and you became more and more like Master Jue~~~ I found joy in life again, so I did everything in my power to mold you into him. But your father discovered my intentions and took you away from me~~~ And then...” Zhao Meng suddenly let out a chilling, sinister laugh. “ Heaven has eyes, they got into a car accident~~~ Which gave me the legitimate right to raise you myself~~~ During those ten years abroad, cultivating you was far more interesting than killing people... But...” A look of grievance crept onto Zhao Meng's face. “The older you got, the less you resembled him—or rather, sometimes you did, and sometimes you didn't~~~ And then, the thrill of killing took over me once again! Especially after discovering someone using clumsy methods to imitate my crimes...” The rest of his sentence was swallowed by Zhao Meng's raspy, elderly laughter.

The group stared in absolute horror at this withered, candle-in-the-wind old man, as if that shriveled husk no longer held any earthly meaning—he was a ghost through and through~~~

“Put down the gun!” Zhao Zhen commanded abruptly. He gently lifted his chin, looking at Zhao Meng with a half-smile~~~

Zhao Meng looked utterly entranced. “...Jue...”

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang inwardly gasped in astonishment. With that expression, Zhao Zhen looked uncanny to Zhao Jue.

“I said put down the gun and come over here!” Zhao Zhen repeated.

Seemingly compelled by some invisible magic, Zhao Meng obediently squatted down, preparing to drop the weapon. Just as the gun was about to hit the ground and Bai Yutang stepped forward to slap handcuffs on him, a light chuckle suddenly echoed from afar~~~

Everyone's attention was drawn by the laughter. Turning their heads, they saw a figure standing on a distant slope—Zhao Jue.

Standing against the light, he watched Zhao Meng with a look of mild disapproval and offered a faint smile...

“Ah.........” Zhao Meng let out a sudden, frantic roar. As if possessed by a demon, he snatched the gun back up and aimed it squarely at the children...

A gunshot tore through the sky~~~

Followed immediately by the terrified shrieks of the children...

Bai Yutang fired multiple shots straight into Zhao Meng's head—blood splattered everywhere, and the police officers rushed forward to rescue the kids.

On the opposite slope, however, Zhao Jue had already vanished without a trace. Without a second word, Zhan Zhao bolted toward the spot, and Bai Yutang hurried after him: “Cat, wait up~~~”

Down below the slope, Zhao Jue was walking at a slow, leisurely pace when he suddenly stopped. He looked with a touch of pleasant surprise at a car that had just pulled up before him. The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a tailored business suit stepped out~~~ He looked surprisingly young, though his face was carved in ice, utterly expressionless, bearing mature facial features strikingly similar to Zhan Zhao's.

Zhao Jue bounded up a few steps, stopping ten paces away from him, and smiled. “I actually thought you wouldn't come~~~”

Silence hung in the air for a moment before the man asked in a frosty tone, “Why did you summon me here?!”

“I wanted to see you~~~” Zhao Jue said playfully. “It's been so long, don't you have anything to say to me?”

“I do~~~” Staring hard at Zhao Jue for a moment, the man maintained his frigid cadence. “Stay away from my son!”

“Ha-ha~~~” Zhao Jue burst into bright laughter. “Are you certain he's your son? Qingtian?”

Opening the car door, Zhan Qingtian replied, “Even if he isn't my son, my advice remains the same: stay away from him!” With that, he got back into the car and drove away...

A triumphant gleam, akin to a successful prankster, flashed across Zhao Jue's face. He glanced back at an earthen retaining wall behind him, turned around, and strolled away humming a cheerful little tune.

Behind the earthen wall, Zhan Zhao stood frozen in place. He raised his face to look at the deeply worried Bai Yutang beside him and asked, “What were they talking about just now...”

Bai Yutang was equally thrown into chaos. Seeing the shock mirrored in Zhan Zhao's eyes, he reached out, pulled him tightly into his arms, and held him fast. “Cat, don't be like this.”

Zhan Zhao only grabbed fistfuls of Bai Yutang's jacket, repeating, “What did they say just now~~~”

Christmas Day arrived with an unexpected snowfall. Because S.C.I. had brilliantly cracked the massive two-decade-spanning case, Bao Zheng granted everyone a three-day holiday~~~

The team members scattered back to their respective homes. Zhao Hu was still at the hospital helping Qi Le look after Chen Yu.

Mahan felt a splitting headache when Chen Jiayi suddenly appeared at his doorstep~~~ His younger sister, Ma Xin, happened to be a massive fan of Chen Jiayi and promptly sold out her own older brother. Ma Mama had been waiting over twenty years for Mahan to finally "bring" home a girlfriend—and such a stunning one at that—so she immediately sold out her son as well~~~ From that day onward, Chen Jiayi had a legitimate, everyday excuse to drop by for visits.

Gongsun was effectively "kidnapped" by the Ding twins and dragged off to a resort island for the holiday. Waking up the next morning, the first things he laid eyes on were massive stone statues and Bai Jingtang flashing a shameless, lovestruck grin~~~

Little Bai Chi's Christmas involved not only temporarily babysitting an infant, but also looking after Zhao Zhen—who was ostensibly "incapable of self-care" due to his injury—alongside Lisboa.

Christmas Eve descended amidst fluttering silver snowflakes and the brilliant glow of colorful festive lights...

Bai Yutang sat alone on the steps outside the hot spring villa, lost in a daze~~~

Ever since that day, Zhan Zhao had taken a leave of absence, claiming he needed some time alone to clear his head, and then vanished completely.

The relief of solving the case, the excitement of Bai Jingtang gifting him a sports plane—everything had turned bland and meaningless.

Unable to find Zhan Zhao anywhere, Bai Yutang had nonetheless been irresistibly drawn by some inexplicable impulse to the entrance of the hot spring villa. It was freezing outside, but he had no desire to go in... He sat there for who knows how long until his scattered gaze was suddenly caught by a solitary figure walking toward him in the distance. In disbelief, he stood up and took a few steps forward~~~

The dim, amber glow of the streetlamp made the figure look somewhat surreal.

Bai Yutang watched as Zhan Zhao walked right up to him. Both of them were covered in a light layer of accumulated snow, making them look rather comical~~~

Zhan Zhao shot a glare at the dumbstruck, frozen Bai Yutang. “What are you staring at? Don't recognize me anymore?!”

“You... I...” For once, Bai Yutang was completely flustered, not knowing what to say~~~

“I'm freezing to death~~~” Zhan Zhao muttered softly. “I walked all the way here~~~ Couldn't catch a cab, and I don't know how to drive myself...”

“Cat~~~” Unable to process anything else, Bai Yutang pulled Zhan Zhao straight into his arms and held him desperately close. “Cat~~~”