S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 4: Chapter 2

The Non-Human Killer 02 - The Curse  

Akasha's terrifying appearance and eerie tone startled the several young women present into screaming one after another.

Bai Yutang frowned. "Everyone unrelated, head outside." With that, he told Qu Yanming and the other bodyguard at the door, "You two keep an eye on the scene for now."

The two of them cooperatively ushered everyone else out of the room. As she walked away, the fortune-telling woman named Akasha pulled at her shattered voice and shouted, "If you do not believe in curses, if you do not believe in demons... you will suffer the punishment of the demons!"

Shaking his head, Bai Yutang turned back around to find that Gongsun and Zhan Zhao had already gathered around the safe, meticulously scrutinizing the corpse that exuded uncanniness from every pore.

Gongsun furrowed his brows tightly. After studying it for a long time, he said to Bai Yutang, "We'll have to take the corpse back out to determine the cause of death."

Bai Yutang fell silent for a moment before asking, "Was he dismembered and put inside?"

Gongsun shook his head. "No... he was folded up."

"Folded..." Bai Yutang gave a wry smile. "A human being was folded up?"

"Do you want the honest truth?" Gongsun gave a slight smile. "It truly doesn't look like something a human could accomplish." With that, he walked out of the room to wash his hands.

Bai Yutang patted Zhan Zhao, who was still staring in a daze at the corpse inside the box, and asked, "Cat'er, notice anything? You're being so serious!"

Zhan Zhao thought for a moment before saying, "Little Bai, have you ever seen how cars are crushed with a hydraulic press during recycling?"

Bai Yutang nodded. "Indeed—four steel plates on the four sides plus one on top can squeeze a person into a square. The question is, why go to the trouble of making it like this?"

"Two mentalities," Zhan Zhao said, folding his arms. "The simple mindset is that the killer wants people to focus their attention entirely on the curse of the corpse box."

"And the second?" Bai Yutang pressed. "The non-simple mindset?"

"Mhm, then we have to analyze it from the perspective of his actions," Zhan Zhao said. "This killer's thoughts are extremely meticulous, confident, and even arrogant."

"Mhm," Bai Yutang nodded. "Looking at this locked-room safe crime scene he set up, we should probably add that he's also extremely bored."

Zhan Zhao slowly walked a circle around the table, appraising the safe from all angles. "After finishing it, he must have walked around it just like this... as if admiring his own masterpiece. Slipping the cell phone into the victim's mouth is the ultimate proof. He was mocking him, mocking everyone, as if saying..."

"He is a god," Bai Yutang finished for him. "Not a human... right?!"

Zhan Zhao let out a helpless sigh and nodded.

Bai Yutang understood and concluded, "Great, yet another psycho making a mockery of human lives."

At that moment, two synchronized voices chimed in from the doorway: "Oh my, how horrifying! Was Boss really planning to use money to buy this?"

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked back to see the twins, each carrying a leather suitcase, appearing at the entrance.

"There's nothing left for you two to do here!" Bai Yutang jutted his chin toward the box. "The person who collects the money is inside... and the item is gone!"

"Then... where's Big Boss?" Little Ding looked around in every direction.

The others began looking around as well. Bai Jintang had just been standing at the door—where had he gone?

...

Inside the restroom, Gongsun turned on the faucet and washed his hands... Perhaps out of the long-standing habit of a forensic pathologist, Gongsun washed while wearing his gloves first, scrubbing the gloves until they were impeccably clean, before removing them to wash his bare hands.

As he lowered his head to rinse under the running water, his mind filled with the bizarre death posture of the corpse from earlier, he suddenly felt a wave of warmth at his back. Raising his head, he saw that Bai Jintang had somehow appeared right behind him.

Giving the man in the mirror a somewhat perplexed look, Gongsun asked while continuing to wash his hands, "What brings you here?"

Bai Jintang didn't speak. With a smile, he lowered his head and leaned close to Gongsun's ear. "The way you examined that corpse just now was truly sexy."

Gongsun smiled without a word.

Bai Jintang stood beside him, waiting patiently for him to finish washing his hands.

...

When the two of them emerged from the restroom, the S.C.I. police officers had already arrived.

After the crime scene investigation and evidence collection were complete, Gongsun asked everyone to lock the box back up and bring it back to the S.C.I. morgue. Seeing the eager look on his face, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang knew he couldn't wait to get the corpse out of that box.

Right at that moment, the sound of an argument echoed from the entrance. Carlos's secretary, Lu Yan, was grabbing onto Qu Yanming and the other bodyguard, demanding that they take responsibility.

"It was you! Aside from you two, no one else could have tampered with it!" Lu Yan said with extreme agitation to the police officers nearby. "Officer! Arrest them! It must have been their doing, there's no one else!"

"But..." Zhan Zhao suddenly asked, "The key was with you... wasn't it?"

"I..." Lu Yan paused slightly, released Qu Yanming and the bodyguard, and muttered to herself in a somewhat dazed and soul-numbed state, "It can't be a curse... That's just a legend... It can't be real..."

"What legend?" Feeling that her behavior was rather peculiar, Zhan Zhao took her aside to a separate lounge to sit and chat.

Bai Yutang and the other officers questioned everyone present. After taking their statements, they only detained Qu Yanming and the other bodyguard, whose name was Feng Jie.

With an apologetic pat on Qu Yanming's shoulder, Bai Yutang said, "You two will still need to head down to the police precinct to make a more detailed statement and describe the specifics."

With that, he instructed Wang Chao and Zhang Long to take the two of them back to headquarters first.

Before leaving, Qu Yanming glanced back at the lounge, his gaze carrying a somewhat complicated expression.

"What is it?" Bai Yutang asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Mhm," Qu Yanming thought for a moment before saying, "Captain, this morning I heard Mr. Carlos and Secretary Lu arguing when they were placing the corpse box inside..." He gestured toward the doors of the special meeting room. "They were having a very fierce argument in there."

"That's right!" Feng Jie chimed in. "I heard it too."

"What were they arguing about?!" Bai Yutang asked.

"Because the door was closed, we couldn't hear clearly, but they repeatedly brought up the word 'curse,'" Qu Yanming said.

"Indeed!" Feng Jie added. "Since Lu Yan has a very piercing voice, those two words stood out the clearest."

At that moment, Zhan Zhao and Lu Yan had already emerged from the room, and Wang Chao and Zhang Long escorted the three individuals back to the police station.

"Cat'er, how did it go?" Seeing Zhan Zhao furrowing his brows tightly, Bai Yutang felt the situation might not be looking good.

Zhan Zhao let out a sigh and said, "Let's talk as we walk." With that, he grabbed Bai Yutang and pulled him outward.

"Where are we going?" Bai Yutang was somewhat confused; he had still wanted to check the museum's surveillance footage.

"Carlos's house!" Zhan Zhao said.

Instructing Ma Han and Zhao Hu to go check the surveillance cameras, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exited the museum and drove toward Carlos's villa in the suburbs.

"Just now, Lu Yan told a very interesting story," Zhan Zhao said, gently tapping his chin with his index finger. "It's about the curse of the corpse box."

"Let's hear it," Bai Yutang asked with considerable interest.

"The origin of this corpse box is quite special," Zhan Zhao said. "This is the very last corpse box of the Tusi tribe."

"The last one?" Bai Yutang was puzzled. "They stopped making them after that?"

Zhan Zhao shook his head. "The Tusi tribe was exterminated—wiped out entirely!"

Bai Yutang was slightly startled. "Wiped out? You mean... they didn't die out naturally?"

"Mhm," Zhan Zhao nodded. "The Tusi people lived in the jungle of a small island in Southeast Asia. Roughly a hundred years ago, a Dutch merchant ship dropped anchor on that small island. The Tusi people rescued them and treated them with warm hospitality...

"However, once those sailors were saved, marveling at the exquisite craftsmanship of the Tusi tribe's corpse boxes, they slaughtered all the Tusi people in an attempt to plunder these precious boxes... The only surviving Tusi chieftain burned all the remaining corpse boxes..."

"Then... what about the corpse box exhibited this time?" Bai Yutang asked, perplexed.

"...It belonged to that chieftain," Zhan Zhao said.

"......" A look of deep astonishment crossed Bai Yutang's face. "You mean..."

Zhan Zhao nodded. "Those Dutchmen flew into a rage out of shame... Having witnessed the process of making a corpse box firsthand, they proceeded to turn that chieftain into a corpse box while he was still alive."

Hearing this, Bai Yutang frowned. "No wonder that corpse's expression was so full of agony and resentment."

"Before his death, that chieftain used a curse passed down through generations of the Tusi tribe... to curse those Dutchmen and their descendants," Zhan Zhao said. "According to Lu Yan, Carlos obtained this corpse box from an elderly Dutchman."

"That old man was a descendant of one of those Dutchmen?" Bai Yutang asked. "And afterwards? Did that curse come true?"

" Reportedly... they all died violent deaths," Zhan Zhao said. "Carlos also recently lost his beloved wife of twenty years... and his youngest son contracted a strange illness, driving him mad, which is why he began believing in the curse and wanted to get rid of it."

Bai Yutang fell silent for a moment. "His argument with Lu Yan was probably because she was afraid that selling this item would bring misfortune to others."

"Sigh," Zhan Zhao looked at him. "Big Brother failing to buy it can be considered a blessing."

"You believe in it?" Bai Yutang smiled. "Cat'er, you used to be the one who believed the least in these ghost and god stories."

Zhan Zhao nodded. "I don't believe in them. All evils and demons are simply birthed from the human heart." He glanced at Bai Yutang and slowly added, "Therefore, being targeted by someone with inner demons is no different from being targeted by a demon."

"Ah-ahhhhh—" Suddenly, an exceptionally shrill woman's scream cut him off, coming from inside the villa.

"...Just now..."

"...Yeah!"

"You heard it too..."

"...Right!"

"...Inside..."

"...Uh-huh!"

The two of them swiftly got out of the car, rushed to the front of the villa, and pounded on the towering iron gates, but no one came to open them.

"Ah-ahhh—" Another scream rang out, even more agonizing than the last.

Bai Yutang took two steps back, took a running start, leaped upward, and swiftly stepped against the iron gate and the wall. In three strides he was atop the boundary wall, vaulted down, unlocked the gate from the inside, and ran inward alongside Zhan Zhao.

Passing through the garden, they came upon a white, medieval-style villa from which screams continuously poured out.

Putting aside everything else, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao charged straight into the villa...

And there they saw a middle-aged woman dressed like a maid, kneeling on the floor and screaming nonstop.

Before her lay several bloody animal limbs—resembling a small white puppy, its pure white fur soaked in fresh blood, looking utterly horrifying.

"Hehehehe..." A light chuckle came from above.

The two men raised their heads and saw a teenage boy sitting on the railing of the second-floor mezzanine. He looked to be only thirteen or fourteen years old, with short, curly brown hair, pale skin, a white shirt, and black trousers.

He sat perched on the black iron railing, swinging his legs leisurely as if he might tumble down at any second.

In his left hand, the boy held a small, sharp, blood-stained knife, and his face and the front of his shirt were stained with quite a bit of blood. In his right hand, he held the bloody head of the small puppy, chuckling as he looked down at Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao below, seemingly humming some sort of tune. His voice came and went in fragments, indescribably bizarre.

Zhan Zhao stared at him for a moment before slowly uttering, "OCD..."

Bai Yutang gazed up at the boy above, and upon hearing Zhan Zhao's words, he was momentarily stunned. "OCD? Obsessive-compulsive disorder?!"

Zhan Zhao nodded. "He's sitting at the door of the fifth room, on the fifth section of the railing, with only five buttons buttoned, switching legs every five shakes, humming tunes in five-syllable segments each time... and the animal's corpse is divided into five parts..."

"Can you get him to come down? Without letting him hurt others or himself," Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao.

Thinking for a moment, Zhan Zhao gave a slight smile. "No problem."