S.C.I. (Volume II) - Case 6: Chapter 9

The Innocent Killer 09 - Little Tricks

The person who let out this miserable shriek was naturally Pang Ji, and that bloody head belonged none other to the one who had just been thrown out—Pang Xiaoqin.

"Ahhhh~~" The crowd, finally snapping back to their senses, immediately burst into screams of terror. People frantically tried to flee this bizarre and horrifying scene, only for Bao Zheng to roar, "Nobody is allowed to leave!"

"Lock down the building!" Bai Yutang immediately instructed the SI members who had already gathered around him. "Gather all the guests into a single room, search the building, look for anyone suspicious, and go to the security room to pull the surveillance footage!" With those orders given, the SI members rushed out of the hall to attend to their respective tasks, while the other police officers present organized the guests to assemble and wait in a single room.

Zhan Zhao walked over to the gruesome corpse bizarrely jammed inside the middle of the cake, looking it up and down. The bloody English letters carved across its back were truly glaring.

Pang Ji had already fainted, and his son Pang Qing was accompanying him alongside the medical staff.

Bai Jingtang was frowning as he stared at the cake corpse when the twins walked up behind him and said in low tones, "Boss, should we go hire a feng shui master tomorrow to check the geomancy of this building?"

Bai Jingtang shot them a blank look. Beside him, Gongsun took off his jacket, hurried over, and rolled up his sleeves intending to inspect the body, only to hear someone bellow, "Get the hell away!"

As he spoke, Pang Qing rushed over shouting at the top of his lungs to block the body, glaring furiously at Gongsun as he yelled, "Stop pretending to be a good guy, you're the one who murdered my sister."

Bai Yutang frowned, but considering that the man had just suffered a massive psychological shock, he didn't bicker with him, simply trying to persuade him gently, "Mr. Pang, please don't obstruct the investigation. Conducting the autopsy as soon as possible will help us solve the case."

"Get lost, all of you!" Pang Ji's son waved his arms and shouted like a madman. "It's all your fault, you're the ones who killed my sister... you!" Before he could finish, due to the wild amplitude of his movements, his arm swept against the cake behind him. With a loud crash, the corpse toppled backward along with the cake, spilling all over the floor.

Bai Yutang's expression shifted; he deeply regretted not having someone drag this lunatic away immediately. People surnamed Pang were truly all thumbs, great for ruining things and useless at everything else! Turning to the police officer nearby, he ordered, "Drag him out of here and charge him with willful destruction of a crime scene and obstruction of an investigation!"

The police officer hurriedly stepped forward to haul away the still-ranting and raving Pang Qing. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances and turned back to look at Gongsun, finding that Gongsun's expression was equally grim.

"We're in trouble now," Zhan Zhao said, looking somewhat helpless and exasperated. "Before the forensic team even had time to take photos, the primary crime scene has been destroyed!"

"This brat..." Bai Yutang also offered a cold smile, turning back to look at Gongsun. "Things can't possibly be this coincidental!"

Gongsun walked over to the heap of ruined cake and scattered body parts, squatted down to inspect them closely, and sighed as he shook his head. "Now there's no way to determine how the body actually got inside the cake."

"Cat... how long ago did Pang Xiaoqin leave?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Counting back and forth, it couldn't have been more than half an hour total," Zhan Zhao frowned. "How could anyone possibly kill an adult, dismember them, carve words into them, and pack them into a fully intact cake within thirty minutes?"

Gongsun remained silent for a long moment before shaking his head. "It's completely impossible!"

Yan Li, who had just recovered from her shock, had a face drained completely of color. Her hands gripped Fang Wo's tightly as she said in panic, "Oh god, if I hadn't driven her out, maybe she wouldn't have died!"

Fang Wo, who had remained silent the entire time, patted her hair consolingly and said, "It's not your fault. It's just that this method of death is far too bizarre, it feels just like magic."

The others present were startled. Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged glances, both harboring doubt in their eyes. Bai Yutang turned to look at Yan Li and Fang Wo, saying, "Please, anyone who isn't a police officer, head outside first. We need to secure the scene, and we'll question you further if necessary."

Yan Li and Fang Wo nodded, turning to pull the eager Jiajia toward the exit, but Jiajia struggled against them, protesting, "I don't wanna, I want to stay here and watch them solve the case! It's so exciting, this is my first time witnessing a real crime scene, it's such a thrill!"

Bai Yutang frowned, feeling a strong wave of aversion toward the girl who looked like an angel, wondering whether she was truly just innocent or simply cold-blooded.

Bai Jingtang glared at the twins, who were still stubbornly lingering and refusing to leave. The twins had no choice but to depart, feeling thoroughly reluctant. Walking up to Gongsun's side, Bai Jingtang murmured, "I'm in the suite on the 7th floor. Come over once you're done with your work."

Gongsun was torn between laughter and tears as he looked at Bai Jingtang. "I have to go back and perform an autopsy."

Bai Jingtang planted a kiss on his hair and muttered, "Good thing I can take a nap first to recover my energy." With that, he winked at him. "Missed you to death." Finished speaking, he rose to his feet and walked away with effortless grace.

Gongsun raised his head only to find Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang standing nearby with their ears perked up, listening in on their conversation. He shook his head helplessly. "There's too much fresh cream and cake all over the corpse; it has to be cleaned up properly before the autopsy!"

Bai Yutang nodded, just about to speak when he noticed Zhan Zhao suddenly turning to look behind them. Bai Yutang followed his gaze and saw that Zhao Zhen, who had been fast asleep on the sofa earlier, was now awake, leaning back against the couch with a thoughtful expression as he stared blankly at the crime scene.

Right after the incident, Bai Chi had run off with A Luo to the surveillance room to check the security footage, leaving Zhao Zhen by himself. Seeing Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looking at him, Zhao Zhen sensibly stood up, preparing to leave, when Zhan Zhao suddenly called out, "Zhao Zhen... we need a consultation."

Zhao Zhen smiled helplessly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and turned back. After days of interaction, coupled with the fact that Zhao Zhen had previously saved the lives of Zhan Zhao and Luoyang, alongside his growing closeness with Bai Chi, the wariness that Zhan and Bai had initially held toward Zhao Zhen had completely evaporated. The two of them often joked around with him; besides, putting aside his occasional eccentricities, Zhao Zhen was truly a rare, easy-going person to get along with.

Walking over to stand beside Zhan Zhao, Zhao Zhen looked up at him. "Consult about what?"

"Does this involve any elements of magic?" Bai Yutang asked. "Are there any similar techniques?"

"A cake stuffed with meat?" Zhao Zhen shrugged. "Doubt anyone would do that, it lacks any aesthetic appeal."

Both Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao felt deflated. At that moment, Gongsun, who was examining the body, suddenly let out an "Huh?"

"What is it?" Bai Yutang squatted down and asked, "Any discoveries?"

"There is a large amount of postmortem hypostasis on the victim's chest and abdomen," Gongsun frowned. "She's been dead for at least two hours."

"What?" Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao stared at each other in blank dismay. Two hours? That meant Pang Xiaoqin was already dead before the banquet even started, so who was the person who clashed with Gongsun and got kicked out just now? Did everyone experience a collective hallucination or something?

"After death, the corpse must have been kept in a prone position for a certain amount of time," Gongsun explained, pointing at the bloody characters carved into the victim's back as he spoke. "The blood has completely coagulated. If she had been dead for less than half an hour, she should still have been bleeding profusely!"

"This is getting demonic," Bai Yutang said, looking at Zhan Zhao.

"Bai, look!" Zhan Zhao pointed his finger at the victim's head and the shoulder-neck region of the torso, asking, "Don't you think the skin color looks different in those two places?"

Gongsun nodded as well. "Right, and the cut marks at the joint are different too!"

"Does that mean the head and the body don't belong to the same person?" Bai Yutang asked in shock.

"Put another way, the body might have been placed inside the cake quite a while ago, and only the head was put in afterward," Zhan Zhao pondered, turning his gaze to Zhao Zhen. "So how did that head get in there?"

Zhao Zhen shook his head helplessly and said, "I finally understand why I suddenly felt so sleepy."

The other three were taken aback by Zhao Zhen's non-sequitur. Zhan Zhao instantly caught on, "Someone slipped something into your drink so you wouldn't see them tampering with it, and aside from you, nobody else in the entire room would notice their trick!"

Zhao Zhen nodded with a smile. "You really are quick on the uptake... I didn't drink any alcohol earlier; I ate a plate of scones Chichi brought me. I only took half a bite, felt the taste was a bit weird, and stopped eating... Then I inexplicably felt overwhelmingly sleepy. You guys might want to investigate the ingredients in those scones."

"Scones..." Bai Yutang nodded toward the arriving forensic team members, instructing, "Take the scones from that table back for testing!"

"Understood." The forensic officer hurried over, searched the banquet table in a circle, and reported back, "Captain Bai, there are no scones here."

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged glances, both turning to look at Zhao Zhen.

Zhao Zhen gave a yawn and said, "Ask Chichi where he got them, or who gave them to him."

Bai Yutang called Bai Chi down on his phone, while Zhan Zhao continued asking Zhao Zhen with curiosity, "What kind of trick could pull this off?"

"Ever heard of instant transportation out of thin air?" Zhao Zhen asked Zhan Zhao lazily.

"Mm," Zhan Zhao nodded. "It's a staple in psychic powers too."

Zhao Zhen nodded, raised his left hand to wave it in front of Zhan Zhao, and opened his palm to reveal a coin. As he spoke, he opened his lower right hand to show Zhan Zhao, "Right hand is empty, left hand has the coin! See clearly?"

"Mm!" Zhan Zhao nodded.

"Now I'm going to teleport that coin from my left hand to my right." After speaking, he opened his left hand—the coin was gone. He opened his right hand—the coin appeared.

Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin, while Bai Yutang and Gongsun beside him also looked deep in thought.

"Magic is all deception at its core. The key is exploiting human instinct and habits to manufacture an illusion," Zhao Zhen said indifferently. "The defining feature of this kind of teleportation trick is: visual misdirection!"

"Visual misdirection?" The group listened quietly as he continued.

"The average person's eyes must work simultaneously, and their attention can only focus on one thing. Once they lock onto one focal point, they loosen up on everything else..."

"You mean the killer exploited the attention of everyone present to complete this body concealment?" Bai Yutang pondered. "How did they pull it off?"

"Too bad I completely missed it," Zhao Zhen shrugged. "If only there was footage or something I could take a look at."

At that moment, Bai Chi hurried running down, calling out, "Big Bro, you looked for me? Oh right, A Luo and I just tried to pull up the hall's surveillance footage to take a look, but... it didn't record anything at all!"

"Didn't record anything?" Zhan Zhao asked in shock. "How is that possible?" He looked up at the security cameras mounted along the walls as he spoke. "Clearly..."

"Who knows what tampering was done to it, but whatever it captured is pitch black, nothing recorded at all," Bai Chi said anxiously. "Jiang Ping is running a technical analysis right now, he should figure out the cause soon."

Bai Yutang nodded and asked, "Did you give Zhao Zhen a scone earlier?"

"Mm." Bai Chi nodded.

"Who gave it to you?" Bai Yutang asked. "There weren't any on the buffet table."

Bai Chi blinked, answering, "A waiter just brought them out. I was worried leaving them there too long would make them unsanitary, and seeing he had just brought out two fresh scones, I took them straight to Zhao Zhen... What's wrong?"

"Chichi, I was drugged," Zhao Zhen walked over, threw an arm around Bai Chi's shoulders, and rubbed against him twice. "Sleepy."

"What?" Bai Chi was alarmed, asking, "Drugged? What kind of drug? Is it serious? No wonder you lost all your energy after eating that scone!"

"Let me describe the situation to you," Zhan Zhao recounted the exact details of what had transpired to Zhao Zhen. Hearing it out, Zhao Zhen smiled and shook his head, "Third-rate magic."

"Oh?" Everyone was intrigued.

"Well... based on what you described, the corpse's head was placed at the very bottom, and you judged the victim's identity based on that head, right?" Zhao Zhen asked.

"Right!" Everyone nodded.

"From the moment the cake was rolled into the banquet hall up until the body was discovered, did anyone pay attention to the very bottom layer of the cake?" Zhao Zhen asked.

"Um..." Everyone hesitated. Bai Chi rubbed his head and recalled, "Because of the spotlight, I was looking at the newlyweds, the two wedding dolls on top of the cake, and the blood that spurted out after the final knife cut. Then I heard Big Bro shout to turn on the lights..."

"That's precisely where the catch is!" Zhao Zhen suddenly interrupted Bai Chi, saying, "Throughout the entire process, there were simply too many places capable of drawing our attention away! Because of that, nobody would notice anything wrong with the cake beforehand. And the entire key to it all lies in Captain Bai's command to 'turn on the lights'!"

"What does turning on the lights have to do with it?" Bai Chi was baffled, but Zhan Zhao seemed to understand. He walked over to the pile of shattered cake, picked up a broken circular metal frame from the floor, reassembled it, and spun it with his hand in surprise, "The bottom layer can actually rotate?!"

"Looks like the key lies within this movable tier!" Bai Yutang realized, nodding along.

Zhao Zhen shook his head with a bitter smile. "If everyone were like you guys, magicians would all be out of a job."

"What on earth does that mean?" Bai Chi grew anxious, tugging at Zhao Zhen's sleeve. "Explain it clearly, I'm slow!"

Zhao Zhen stroked his head with a trace of pampering in his smile. "You're not slow, just innocent. The principle is actually very simple!" Zhao Zhen patiently explained to Bai Chi, "How many tiers does this cake have in total?"

"Five tiers."

"What's on the first tier?"

"Two people in formal wear."

"Cute?"

"Cute."

"And the second tier?"

Bai Chi thought for a moment. "Carved icing patterns..."

"The third tier?" Zhao Zhen continued asking.

"Um... carved patterns..." Bai Chi lacked confidence.

"The fourth tier?"

==... Bai Chi felt depressed too—he hadn't paid attention at all.

"The fifth tier?" Zhao Zhen asked last.

"How could I possibly see it?! There was no spotlight down there!" Bai Chi argued in self-defense.

"This is actually a very simple trick!" Zhao Zhen said. "The top four tiers of the cake are connected as one and were pre-stuffed with the body, while the bottom tier is relatively independent. Plus, half of it got swapped out later... a perfect crime!"

"Half?!" Bai Chi's eyes lit up in sudden realization. "Ah, I get it. It might be difficult to kill someone, dismember them, and pack them into a cake within half an hour, but putting a human head into the cake during that time is super easy!"

"Spot on," Zhao Zhen nodded approvingly. "All you have to do is cut half of that independent tier away, remove a portion of the cake, and carefully place the head inside... half an hour is more than enough time!"

"But why drug you?" Bai Yutang frowned. "Could it be that they swapped the head right there at the scene? Using that visual misdirection, taking advantage of the moment everyone heard my shout and shifted their attention to the lights, someone hid behind the giant cake, swapped the head in, turned it to face the front, and spun the turntable so the corpse's head... ended up right inside the cake, facing the crowd!"

Zhao Zhen burst out laughing. "Brilliant, brilliant! That's exactly what I was thinking!"

"There's one more highly suspicious detail!" Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow, looking around at the others. If the bottom tier of the cake had been tampered with, anyone walking close would definitely have noticed. The only way to avoid being exposed was—to destroy the cake!