S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 5: Chapter 22
The Doppelganger Killer 22 - Illusory and Deceptive
"That's roughly how it went." After saying this, Bai Jintang looked back and forth between Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao. "Is there anything else you two want to ask?"
The two of them exchanged glances, but neither spoke. It wasn't that they had nothing left to ask, but rather that questioning him about those past events felt akin to rubbing salt into Bai Jintang's wounds. Originally, Zhan Zhao had been trying every possible method to help Bai Jintang recover his memories, but after hearing him recount his experiences, he felt that for Bai Jintang's own sake, it might actually be better if he never remembered everything entirely.
Right at that moment, Gongsun walked out of the emergency stairwell holding a document bag.
"Why are you all just standing around?" Gongsun walked up, noticing that the atmosphere seemed a bit off, and looked at the three of them with a question.
"Ahem..." Bai Yutang gave a light cough, raised his head, and asked Gongsun, "How is it upstairs?"
"All clear." Gongsun shook the bag in his hand. "The item is right here. It's not a domestic product; we'll take it back first to search for clues, and everything's fine upstairs now."
Zhan Zhao opened the car door to receive Yangyang and cast a meaningful glance at Bai Yutang. Bai Yutang nodded and turned to look back at Bai Jintang.
Seeing the hint of apology in Bai Yutang's eyes—making him look just like a kid who had done something wrong—Bai Jintang was left somewhat amused and exasperated. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "What are you still standing around for? Let's go."
Rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish expression, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao scrambled into the elevator looking somewhat disheveled.
Once the three of them stepped inside, Gongsun noticed that Bai Jintang had already settled into the driver's seat, so he followed him in.
"What's wrong? Why is your expression so sour?" Settling into the passenger seat, Gongsun reached over to gently pinch Bai Jintang's ear. "It's rare to see you giving two little devils a hard look."
Bai Jintang didn't say anything. He turned his head to gaze at Gongsun, leaned over, and planted a kiss on the corner of his lips.
After freezing for a brief moment, Gongsun raised his hand and delivered a harmless, straight-punch right to Bai Jintang's chest.
"Heh..." Bai Jintang rubbed his chest and smiled as he asked, "Hungry? Let's go get some food."
"I'm going back to the police station!" Gongsun glared at him.
Laughing indifferently, Bai Jintang calmly dropped a single sentence: "I'll wait for you." With that, he started the ignition.
Gongsun looked down at the bag in his lap, and after a short pause, said, "I'll drop this off first, and then we'll eat."
Bai Jintang reached out to stroke his hair. "Alright..."
………………
Pressing the close-door button, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang let out long sighs of relief, exchanging glances that conveyed a shared sense of lingering distress.
Luoyang looked up at Zhan Zhao, then at Bai Yutang, and asked with childish curiosity, "What's wrong with you guys? Did you do something bad?"
Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang startled, their faces flushing red as they glared at Yangyang and spoke in unison, "Who says we did?!" As soon as they finished, they awkwardly locked eyes with each other again.
Luoyang wore a look that clearly said I understand now, nodded, and stopped asking further questions. As soon as the elevator doors opened, he sprinted out to find his bearded uncle. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang let out another heavy sigh, hanging their heads in defeat as they trailed after him.
Inside the ward, the bearded man was lying in bed with a layer of gauze wrapped around his neck, while Bai Chi was feeding him water with a spoon.
Luoyang happily scampered inside, took the cup and spoon from Bai Chi's hands, and stood on tiptoe to feed water to the bearded man.
"The doctor says you need to drink plenty of water." Bai Chi walked over to Zhan Zhao's side and glanced toward the doorway. "Where's Big Brother?"
The expressions on the faces of the two men turned even more wretched as they mumbled vaguely, "He went back with Gongsun."
"Can he speak now?" Zhan Zhao quickly changed the subject, looking past Bai Chi to the bearded man.
"He's already able to. The wound should heal in about a week, though it might hurt a bit when he talks during this period."
Seeing the bearded man drinking water with an expression brimming with happiness as he accepted the spoonfuls from Yangyang, neither Zhan Zhao nor Bai Yutang wanted to interrupt him. They pulled over a couple of chairs, sat down to the side, and waited for him to finish.
Before long, the cup of water hit the bottom. The bearded man turned his face toward the two of them and parted his lips. "What happened?"
Without the interference of the voice changer, the bearded man heard his own natural voice for the very first time in his life.
"How did you know something happened?" Zhan Zhao asked with a hint of curiosity.
"...A feeling." The bearded man offered a very brief two-word reply.
Zhan Zhao slightly knitted his brows. Bai Jintang also seemed to possess this kind of extraordinary, razor-sharp intuition; could this coincidence really be just a fluke?
"The bearded guy has been caught," Bai Yutang suddenly chimed in, "though we aren't sure if he's that 'Minus-1-11' you mentioned."
The bearded man bolted upright from the bed in an abrupt start, causing Luoyang right beside him to glare fiercely at him. "You're a patient! Lie back down!"
After hesitating for a moment, he obediently lay back down, looking at Luoyang with a pitiful expression as if silently asking—why are you so fierce?
The other three watched the scene, wanting to laugh... yet feeling a tinge of heartache at the same time.
"I want to see him," the bearded man said to Bai Yutang.
"Do you remember an Italian nursery rhyme?" Zhan Zhao asked the bearded man.
"A nursery rhyme..." The bearded man pondered for a moment, looking perplexed. "What nursery rhyme?"
Zhan Zhao looked toward Luoyang, and Luoyang hummed a couple of lines for the bearded man, adding, "You used to hum this before, don't you remember?"
The color drained entirely from the bearded man's face, turning ashen white. He parted his lips and turned to ask Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "You guys... where did you hear that from?"
"The bearded guy kept singing it!" Bai Yutang replied. "He even came to look for us last night, calling out for Brother Luoyang..."
"That's impossible!" Before Bai Yutang could finish his sentence, the bearded man sprang violently upright once more, his face a mask of panic and terror. "Impossible! He died long ago."
"What did you say?" Zhan Zhao was baffled, but the bearded man leaped up in agitation. Bai Yutang stepped forward and firmly pressed him back down. "Don't get so worked up! What's this about someone being dead or alive?"
"What else did he say? What else did he say?" The bearded man gripped Bai Yutang's wrist tightly as he demanded an answer.
Bai Yutang frowned; this guy's strength was truly absurd. "He called himself Jie-Jie."
The moment those words fell, the bearded man collapsed dejectedly back onto the bed, shaking his head. "How can that be..."
"What are you talking about? What's possible and what's impossible?" Zhan Zhao pulled Luoyang, who was standing frozen in shock to the side, right in front of him so the bearded man could see his face. Sure enough, the bearded man gradually calmed down. He let out a sigh, slowly saying, "I don't understand. Take me to see him; once we meet face-to-face, you'll understand."
With no other choice, Bai Yutang glanced back at Zhan Zhao, and seeing Zhan Zhao nod, led everyone out of the ward.
Once they reached the parking lot, Zhan Zhao suddenly patted Luoyang's head and said, "Yangyang, go ride in Brother Bai Chi's car, okay?"
Understanding that Zhan Zhao and the others wanted to talk to the bearded man alone, Luoyang nodded and obediently climbed into Bai Chi's vehicle.
As the car rolled forward smoothly, Zhan Zhao looked back at the bearded man and asked, "After this matter is all wrapped up, do you want to take Yangyang back and raise him?"
The bearded man froze, a flicker of hesitation crossing his eyes, but he ultimately shook his head and flatly replied, "I can't."
"Matters always come to a resolution one day. Wouldn't it be great to live together with Yangyang then?" Bai Yutang asked him. "With your abilities, making a living to support a child shouldn't be a problem. You can even have Cat treat your psychological issues. This child is so attached to you—can you really bear to part with him?"
The bearded man looked quite distressed, but he clenched his teeth and shook his head anyway. "No... I've killed people!"
Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances. "If you're talking about Poe, that was entirely his own doing; you don't need to feel guilty about that at all."
After a long silence, the bearded man spoke in a hauntingly soft voice, "I've killed other people too, completely innocent people... A debt owed must be paid back one day." Having said that, he closed his mouth and refused to utter another word.
Before long, the car pulled up at the police station. The moment they stepped into the office, they saw Ma Han rushing back in a frantic hurry. "Chief, something else happened!"
"What happened?" Bai Yutang handed him a cup of water, telling him to catch his breath first. "Did you bring the person back?"
"Brought him back, and locked him up in the interrogation room." Ma Han took the cup but didn't drink, blurting out anxiously, "Another person is dead—done by the Shadow Killer!"
"What?" Everyone gasped in unison.
"Who died?" Zhan Zhao asked. "Chen Jie?"
Ma Han paused, staring straight at Zhan Zhao. "Dr. Zhan, how did you know?"
Zhan Zhao remained silent, his mind spinning at lightning speed.
"Ouyang春 has already taken his own people over there!" Ma Han said. "Chief, what should we do?"
"Go notify Gongsun to perform the autopsy. You and Bai Chi go ahead first; we'll be right there!" Just as Bai Yutang finished speaking, Ma Han bolted out of sight.
Zhan Zhao felt someone tugging at the corner of his jacket. Looking down, he saw Luoyang tilting his head up to ask, "Auntie Chen is dead?"
The bearded man beside him reached out to stroke his hair, murmuring words of comfort in a low voice. "It's not your fault, don't take it to heart."
Luoyang nodded, his complexion brightening considerably.
Zhan Zhao sighed. Was this what they called the telepathic bond between father and son? Family ties were far more reliable than psychology. With a bond like that, who could bear to separate them? Yet the bearded man still seemed to harbor a mountain of secrets he hadn't yet disclosed.
When everyone arrived at the interrogation room, they saw another bearded man strapped into a specialized steel restraint chair, staring up with a curious expression at the furnishings around him. When the group reached the one-way observation mirror, the man actually turned his head and flashed a smile at them, as if he had sensed their presence.
Zhan Zhao frowned. Did this guy's senses exceed even ordinary people's?
The bearded man stared intently at the person inside for a long while before letting out a breath of relief. "He's not Minus-1-11. You've caught the wrong person."
...Now it was Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's turn to be shocked. Where on earth had this other bearded man popped out from, then?
"Do you recognize who he is?" Zhan Zhao asked.
The bearded man shook his head. "No."
"Then who did you think he was in the beginning?" Zhan Zhao pressed on relentlessly.
The bearded man turned his head to look at Zhan Zhao, then glanced toward Luoyang who had been trailing closely behind them, casting a look that implied Luoyang should step outside first.
Bai Yutang called Jiang Ping over, instructing him to take Luoyang to the office to play for a little while.
Once everyone else had cleared out, the bearded man spoke. "Someone I killed in the past."
"Give us the specifics." Bai Yutang pulled over a chair, sat down, and motioned for both the bearded man and Zhan Zhao to take a seat as well.
"Back when we were in training... there were frequent elimination drills," the bearded man explained to the two of them. "That meant two people drawn as opponents would fight each other to the death until one of them was left."
"I killed someone back then. Actually, he was my best friend there. Even though neither of us was allowed to speak or show any emotions, we hung out together all the time... He was an imperfect product; because he still retained a certain amount of memories, he would often sing that song when nobody was around, and he taught it to me too."
"Are you certain you killed him?" Zhan Zhao asked.
"...I should be." The bearded man pondered. "Even if he was lucky enough not to die and managed to escape, it's not him!"
"Can you be sure?" Bai Yutang asked. "After all, so many years have passed."
"It's not him!" the bearded man stated with absolute certainty. "If you've ever killed someone yourself, you will never forget what the person you killed looked like."
Bai Yutang opened his mouth, unable to voice any words, and finally gave a heavy nod.
"What are your plans now?" the bearded man asked. "We agreed on a cooperation."
Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, conveying a silent message—you take it from here.
Zhan Zhao looked the bearded man up and down before nodding in agreement. "Cooperation is fine. You help us catch the killer, but during this period, you cannot leave our line of sight. Anyway, Yangyang is already living with us, so you can stay with him in the guest room."
The bearded man froze for a moment, but ultimately gave a nod; after all, the temptation was simply too great.
Bai Yutang thought to himself that Zhan Zhao was truly shrewd—this way, there was zero chance the bearded man could slip away. Turning his gaze back to the bearded man, he rubbed his chin and said, "There's no way you can go out looking like this! You need to clean yourself up first."