S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 4: Chapter 9

The Non-Human Killer 09 - Mutation  

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao walked up to the interrogation room, where they saw an expressionless Qu Yanming sitting inside behind the one-way glass. The two of them did not rush in right away, choosing instead to stand outside and stare at him for a long while.

"Cat'er..." Bai Yutang suddenly spoke up. "What is his mental state like?"

Zhan Zhao examined him carefully for a moment longer before saying, "He has no problems."

"You mean he's clear-headed right now?" Bai Yutang confirmed once more.

"Mm-hm," Zhan Zhao nodded. "Exceedingly clear-headed!"

"I'd like to talk to him alone," Bai Yutang said apologetically to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly and patted his shoulder. "I also think that's the wiser decision." With that, he turned and walked out of the interrogation room.

Pushing open the door, Bai Yutang stepped inside, sat down opposite Qu Yanming, and remained silent, simply staring right at him.

After a long while, Qu Yanming's eyelashes twitched slightly.

Bai Yutang let out a soft sigh. "Don't you have anything to say?"

Qu Yanming fell silent for a moment before speaking up, asking softly, "How is... how is he?"

"Who are you asking about?" Bai Yutang asked knowingly.

Qu Yanming lowered his head even further. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hit him."

"You hesitated when you fired the shot," Bai Yutang said flatly. "Otherwise, Cat'er would have been hurt much worse."

"So that's why you didn't shoot to kill me..." Qu Yanming's previously tense shoulders relaxed slightly. "He isn't badly hurt, then... That's good."

"Give me the truth. Why on earth did you do it?" Bai Yutang stared straight at Qu Yanming.

Followed by another long silence, Qu Yanming finally gave a bitter, helpless smile and shook his head. "Captain... I can't say."

"Why?" Bai Yutang frowned.

"I can't bring harm to people..." Qu Yanming kept shaking his head. "Stop asking."

"Harm people?!" The more Bai Yutang heard, the stranger it sounded. "Who on earth are you going to harm by telling the truth?!"

Qu Yanming raised his head and stared fixedly at Bai Yutang. "You..."

Bai Yutang was so exasperated he couldn't help laughing. "Are you saying telling the truth will bring harm to me?"

Qu Yanming nodded earnestly.

"It doesn't matter," Bai Yutang reached out and tapped the table lightly. "I don't care. Go ahead and tell me!"

"I'm not joking!" Qu Yanming suddenly grew agitated. "I don't want to hurt you! This matter is not something human beings can handle!"

"What?" Bai Yutang stared at Qu Yanming for a long time. "You're saying humans can't handle it? Is the real killer not even human?!"

"That's right..." Qu Yanming nodded.

"Don't give me any of that nonsense about curses!" Bai Yutang said coldly.

Qu Yanming lowered his head once more, as if having made a firm decision. "You can lock me up, sentence me, even execute me by firing squad... But I will never talk, not even if I die!"

Seeing the look of absolute determination on Qu Yanming's face, Bai Yutang leaned back in his chair, speechless. This whole affair was turning out to be far too bizarre.

Zhan Zhao strolled back into S.C.I. on his own and saw Bai Chi rubbing his neck as he emerged from his office.

"Any discoveries yet?" Zhan Zhao walked up to him.

"Not yet... There's just too much data," Bai Chi replied while carefully keeping his eyes fixed on Zhan Zhao's right hand.

"They told me you were injured," he asked with a touch of distress. "Does it hurt?"

Zhan Zhao ruffled his hair. "It's just a graze."

At that moment, Bai Chi's stomach let out a loud rumble.

The two of them froze. Bai Chi's face flushed crimson instantly—oh no, he had been so caught up in searching through the files that he had completely forgotten to eat.

Zhan Zhao grabbed him by the arm and headed straight for the cafeteria.

It wasn't mealtime yet, but there were still quite a few people in the cafeteria. The police department's canteen had to supply food twenty-four hours a day because the police force was one of the most irregularly scheduled professions in the world.

Just as the two of them reached the front counter to order, a commotion broke out behind them. Curious, they looked back and saw a middle-aged man in police uniform dressing down two junior officers. "Is this your first day being cops?! You managed to lose your service weapons, get ready to be fired!"

Bai Chi frowned the moment he saw him. The man doing the scolding was Captain Luo Peng, his old superior back when he was in the patrol unit. And the two being chewed out were none other than Wu Kai and Xu Yadong—the very ones who had given him a hard time at the entrance earlier.

The guns are gone... Bai Chi frowned slightly, thinking to himself: Could it be that Zhao Zhen took them?! If so, he really went way too far with his games.

"Bai Chi?" Zhan Zhao noticed the strange expression on Bai Chi's face and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Older brother... Have you seen Zhao Zhen?"

Zhan Zhao paused, shaking his head. "I haven't seen him at all. Wasn't he just with you a moment ago?"

Just then, Captain Luo Peng's shouting grew louder and harsher, and the words coming out of his mouth became increasingly unpleasant.

Seeing that Bai Chi looked rather anxious, Zhan Zhao thought for a moment, reached out to pull him aside, and asked in a low voice, "Do you think Zhao Zhen took their guns? Why?"

Bai Chi looked troubled. "That guy is just like that, pulling reckless pranks without knowing his limits... How..." Before he could even finish, he saw Zhao Zhen strolling casually through the cafeteria doors with both hands shoved into his pockets. Catching sight of Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi ahead, he greeted them with a cheerful smile: "I'm so hungry too... Your police department's food actually looks pretty good..."

Noticing that both Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi were staring straight at him with unblinking eyes, Zhao Zhen began to feel a little unnerved and asked, "What are you two doing?"

Soon enough, he spotted the commotion in the corner of the cafeteria. Once he figured out what was going on, he looked at Bai Chi with a smile. "What? Do you think I did it?"

Bai Chi said in a low voice, "Stop messing around, this isn't a joke!"

Zhao Zhen chuckled. "I didn't take them. What would I even want with those things?"

"Ah! It's him!" Just as the three of them were talking, Wu Kai suddenly shouted from a distance. Following that, he and Xu Yadong charged over together.

"Hand over our guns!" Wu Kai yelled at Zhao Zhen.

Zhao Zhen glanced at him and sneered, "Which of your eyes saw me take your guns?!"

"Who else could it be besides you?!" Xu Yadong said, growing agitated. "This is a police station! Who else on earth would dare come in here and steal police firearms?! You clearly stole our bullets earlier without a sound."

Zhao Zhen frowned and was just about to lash out when Bai Chi quickly stepped in to block him, telling Xu Yadong and Wu Kai, "He didn't take them, you guys have got it wrong."

Paying no heed to explanations, Wu Kai raised a hand, attempting to grab the collar of Zhao Zhen's shirt, while Xu Yadong drew a pair of handcuffs. "You're in deep trouble now. Let's go to the interrogation room and chat slowly."

Zhao Zhen sidestepped to dodge Wu Kai's grasp and casually raised a foot to trip him.

Xu Yadong panicked. "How dare you assault an officer?!"

"This is what they call self-defense, I believe!" Zhao Zhen raised his hand and delivered a punch straight to Xu Yadong's ribs, sending the man stumbling backward to the floor while clutching his stomach.

Bai Chi watched with a deep frown, only to see Zhan Zhao calmly accept a cup of milk tea from the counter and take a sip.

"Older brother..." Bai Chi hurriedly tugged at his sleeve. "Aren't you going to go stop them?"

Zhan Zhao shrugged. "I can't beat him. Aside from Xiao Bai, I doubt anyone in this entire police station could take down Zhao Zhen."

"That's not the point..." Bai Chi panicked. "Is this going to blow up into a huge incident? He's beating up police officers right inside the police station!"

Taking another sip of his tea, Zhan Zhao shook his head and said nonchalantly, "He didn't say anything wrong. It really is called self-defense."

Seeing that Bai Chi was still at a complete loss for what to do, Zhan Zhao requested another cup of pearl milk tea from the counter and handed it to him. "Here, original flavor."

"All of you, stop right there!" Captain Luo Peng stepped forward to intervene, glaring fiercely at his two subordinates who were struggling to climb back up from the floor. "Haven't you embarrassed yourselves enough?!"

With that, he raised his gaze to look at the people present, finally letting his eyes rest on Zhan Zhao as he pointed at Zhao Zhen. "Dr. Zhan, is he with S.C.I.?"

Zhan Zhao shook his head. "No, S.C.I. doesn't have anyone like that." He then added, "By the way, Captain Luo, you mentioned just now that your guns were lost right here inside the police station?"

Luo Peng nodded, turning to his two subordinates. "A bunch of useless trash! You're both suspended from duty. Go back and think long and hard about how exactly you managed to lose your service weapons!"

Wu Kai and Xu Yadong glared bitterly at Zhao Zhen before turning around and storming off in deep resentment.

Luo Peng offered Zhan Zhao a polite, forced smile and strode away as well.

"Guns stolen right inside the police headquarters... and they don't even know how they vanished?" Zhan Zhao muttered to himself as he sipped his milk tea and walked back.

Coming from the opposite direction, he ran straight into Bai Yutang, who wore a dark, foul expression as he stepped out of the interrogation room.

The moment he saw Bai Yutang's face, Zhan Zhao knew the interrogation definitely hadn't gone well. "Xiao Bai, how did it go?"

"Sigh..." Bai Yutang reached out, took the cup right out of Zhan Zhao's hand, and took a sip. "Utterly incomprehensible!"

Standing nearby, Bai Chi blushed as he watched Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao share a single cup of milk tea... Would this count as an indirect kiss??

Just as Bai Yutang was about to explain the situation to Zhan Zhao, his gaze fell further down the corridor, and he froze.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi followed his line of sight into the distance and saw Lu Fang approaching with two men at the far end of the hallway. One of them was the lawyer Hu Lie, who had returned once again, and the other was an elderly man with a head of snow-white hair and glasses.

"He's a psychiatric expert," Zhan Zhao whispered softly to Bai Yutang. "Hu Lie probably brought him in to prove that Qu Yanming is mentally unstable."

"Heh..." Bai Yutang gave a dry laugh. "No need to prove it—even I think he's abnormal!"

Sure enough, Lu Fang walked up to the three of them, made brief introductions, and said to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao, "Attorney Hu has professional medical certification showing that Qu Yanming's mental state is poor, making his testimony unreliable."

"We will be applying to the court for Qu Yanming to receive appropriate medical treatment, but during this period," Hu Lie paused, locking his eyes directly onto Bai Yutang, "you are not permitted to interrogate him any further."

After sending off the lawyer and the psychiatric expert, Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "Cat'er, what do you think?"

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly. "I think... they seem terribly afraid that Qu Yanming might blurt something out."

"That's called giving yourself away without being beaten!" Bai Yutang shook his head.

Right at that moment, a rapid succession of gunshots rang out: Bang, bang, bang!

Startled—gunshots?!

At the same time, personnel from the other offices across the police station poked their heads out to look around in confusion. Why would there be gunfire?

Immediately afterward, a wave of chaotic, panicked screams echoed from downstairs.

Then came another flurry of gunfire.

"Cat'er, how many shots was that?" Bai Yutang drew his gun and sprinted toward the stairwell, with Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi following closely behind. "12 shots!"

Rushing downstairs, they abruptly saw two police officers in full uniform standing in the corridor, loading bullets into their service pistols. Lying on the floor nearby were several wounded officers.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi were horrified to see that the two armed men were none other than Wu Kai and Xu Yadong—the very ones who had claimed their guns were stolen earlier. Right at their feet lay a corpse with its head blown wide open. Judging by the attire, it was none other than patrol captain Luo Peng.

The moment the two men looked up and spotted Bai Yutang and the others, they instantly raised their weapons. Before they even had time to aim, two gunshots rang out from a distance, striking both men squarely in the shoulder. Their pistols dropped to the floor with a clatter, and they collapsed to the ground.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked up and saw Bao Zheng standing not far behind them, holding a smoking gun with an ashen, iron-cold expression.

Several officers rushed out from nearby rooms to subdue the fallen pair... Up close, it was clear that both men had bloodshot eyes and saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths, looking terrifyingly abnormal.

Luo Peng and another officer had already died on the spot, while two others were injured...

Bao Zheng stared expressionlessly as the medical staff rushed about attending to the scene. After a long silence, he said to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao, "You two, come with me!"

A police jeep came to a halt in front of an isolated villa in the suburbs.

Morris hopped out of the vehicle and told Ma Han and Zhao Hu, "This is the place."

The two officers followed Morris into the villa.

"The first floor is where all the materials are piled up..." Morris briefly introduced the layout as he headed straight up the stairs. "The studio is on the second floor..."

Zhao Hu followed Morris upstairs, but noticed that Ma Han had stopped downstairs, staring intently at the corner of the room while reaching his hand toward the holster at his waist...

Quickly drawing his own weapon as well, Zhao Hu made a shushing gesture at Morris, took slow steps backward down the stairs, and followed the direction of Ma Han's gaze.

In the corner of the room, a large pile of furniture was stacked together—sofas, chairs, and several wooden planks...

After staring at it for a long moment, Ma Han withdrew his gun, strode over, and flipped the wooden planks aside with a sharp whoosh. When Zhao Hu walked down to take a look, both men simultaneously drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

After a prolonged silence, Zhao Hu blurted out, "Quick... call the Chief right now!!"