S.C.I. Mystery Files Case 1 Chapter 14

Previous

Next

The Numbers Killer - Chapter 14 Li Feifan

---

Soon, several police cars arrived in front of C University's Psychology Department Building. Gongsun and the others hurriedly got off the car. The police quickly cordoned off the area around the body with yellow tape as the school security tried to disperse the onlookers. The crime scene was contained in an orderly manner. The campus, however, was still in an uproar. 

For a model student like Li Feifan to fall to his death before the student population, it'd be difficult for the university to try and shirk off responsibility. In addition, with the on-site investigations concluding that it was a homicide, it put the entire school on edge. 

The school immediately issued a suspension of class for the day, to cooperate with police investigations.

The S.C.I. team separated out into various groups and got to work. Wang Chao brought some technicians up to the rooftop to take some samples. While Zhang Long went with Xu Qing to question some of Li Feifan's classmates. Ma Han went to Li Feifan's dorm room while Gongsun and Zhao Hu conducted on-site autopsy and questioned witnesses respectively. 

Meanwhile, Bai Yutang pulled Zhan Zhao to the side, into the S.C.I. fieldwork RV, and sat down face to face. 

"What?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang who looked all serious.

"Do you feel better?"

"I was fine from the start," Zhan Zhao turned away and muttered.

"Then what's your relationship with Li Feifan?" Bai Yutang asked cheekily.

"What did you say?!" Zhan Zhao sprung right up.

"Can you not get so agitated first?" Bai Yutang hurriedly reached out to pull Zhan Zhao back down onto the seat, "I'm asking you how much do you know about him? Was there anything special to note, or did he tell you anything?"

Zhan Zhao furrowed his brows in concentration and recalled, "There's nothing in particular. All I know is that he's good at his studies, attends all my lectures and often asks me some questions."

"What kind of questions?"
"It's nothing special, just academic stuff..."

"Do you know when this photo was taken?" Bai Yutang held up the phone and asked.

Zhan Zhao shook his head in frustration, "I have no idea at all."

"What about these numbers: 1, 3, 5?"

Zhan Zhao sigh aloud, "I don't understand what they mean."

Bai Yutang sighed as well, "Hear me out Kitty, this boy jumped off a building holding his phone with your photo. It's like he killed himself for love."

Hearing these words, Zhan Zhao's eyes rounded in anger, "White mouse! This is no time to be joking around!" 

"Keke..."

Bai Yutang reached out to rubbed between Zhan Zhao's brows and said, "I was trying to get you to relax, don't be so tensed."

In return, Zhan Zhan rolled his eyes at him and leaned into the backrest of the seat, "I really have don't have a single clue this time... But I feel like he was trying to tell me something..."

Didididi...

All of a sudden, Bai Yutang's phone rang. When he picked up, it was Ma Han on the line.

"Leader, we found some things in Li Feifan's room. You have to see this."
"What did you find?"

Bai Yutang could hear the anxiousness in Ma Han's voice.

"...I can't explain it clearly, you'll know when you see it. Ah right, bring Dr. Zhan along as well." 

After the call ended, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao headed down as fast as they could.

Li Feifan lived in the graduate hall on the east campus. Due to his excellent results, the school rewarded him with a more luxurious single room. This was a newly constructed building, complete with facilities and pretty decent decor. Li Feifan lived on the 3rd floor, the first room in the east wing, Room 301. 

Walking into his room, the first impression one would get was it was extremely clean. Although there were several officers collecting evidence in the room, the bright windows, spotless floor, neatly arranged bookshelf. It was so clean and tidy one might think it was a hotel room and not dorm room of a young, single male student.
(lilies: I don't think hotel are that clean tho... hotels feel like planes to me. Only looks clean on the surface)

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao walked into the bedroom to find Ma Han crouched down by the bedside. There were a dozen or so thick photo albums by the bed. Seeing the two of them enter, Ma Han got up with an intricate paper box still in hand. 

"Have a look at these first," Ma Han said as he passed those albums to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao. 

The two doubtfully opened an album to have a look and was dumbfounded by the sight. The album was filled with photos of Zhan Zhao, each one marked with a date. There was basically one for every day and the 10 over books totalled to over 1000 photos. The time stamps went all the way back to a year ago. 

Bai Yutang closed the album aside after flipping through a few pages and cursed, "F*ck, this psychopath."

Zhan Zhao was also appalled by the contents of the albums, "H-He's been stalking me?"

"He's stalked you for a year!" Bai Yutang exclaimed as he patted Zhan Zhao on the shoulder, "Kitty, you're pretty amazing! You've been stalked for a whole year, yet you didn't even realise!"

Zhan Zhao glared at him angrily while Ma Han laughed, "It's not surprising he didn't. All these were taken from a long distance, normal people would never have noticed."

"Oh? How did you figure that out?" Bai Yutang expressed his query.

Ma Han scratched his head, "I was trained in this area when I was part of the Flying Tiger Squad¹. When you look at these photos, you can see that some of the foregrounds are incredibly blurry. This means that they were taken with high-powered focal lenses."

He took out a few pictures to show Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao, "These were taken more than 100 metres away. But what's even weirder is that this kid shot these from a sniper's angle."

"Sniping angle?"

"From such a distance, normal people wouldn't know to adjust the angle, they just shoot whatever they can get! However, a sniper would make proper adjustments in order to get the best shot, " as he said, he pointed to his forehead and chest.
(lilies: wow coolio, as a normie I feel attacked AHAHAH jk)

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang took a closer look at the photos and were surprised to find that there was at least one good shot placement.

Bai Yutang asked Ma Han, a little unnerved, "This kid had undergone professional training?"

Ma Han nodded. "He probably didn't take these photos for sniping purposes, but some habits die hard. I can confirm that he's no amateur!"

"Good work!" Bai Yutang said as he gave Ma Han a pat on the back, "This is a lead! You're the expert here, so I'll leave this to you."

"Yes!" Ma Han replied, a little shy. Then he opened the box in his hands and handed it over, "There's this too!"

Zhan and Bai gather around it and saw that there photos inside too. Zhan Zhao was still in the shot, however, he was not the centre of the photo. The camera was focussed on something else, a black Honda.

"This car?" Zhan Zhao glanced at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang nodded, "Yeah, that's the car!"

He then looked at those photos again, thoughtfully, "Kitty, your student was trying to tell you something! He wanted to tell you that you're in danger!"

...!...

Zhan Zhao took the photo from his hand, the car was circled in red in all the photos it was captured in. Clearly, Li Feifan had discovered the existence of this car when he was stalking Zhan Zhao. 

Bai Yutang placed the photos back into the box and said, "Bring this back and have Jiang Ping do a technical analysis on them. See if he can find any clues."

"No wonder he was watching you so nervously," Bai Yutang shrugged, "He was afraid you'd be in danger."

"Why do you think he went to the rooftop by himself?" Zhan Zhao suddenly turned to Bai Yutang and asked.

......

Bai Yutang fell silent.

Zhan Zhao smiled bitterly, "He died for me."

Previous || ToC || Next

---

1. A special duties unit from Hongkong. That's all I've got, the wiki is in traditional chinese and my brain dies when I see that sobs They're basically like a Major Crimes unit^↩

I type in British English (or I try at least), but lowkey sometimes, I can't really remember which is the British spelling and which is American gah Damn you "centre", "center", "metre", "meter", etc grrr

Please feedback to me in the comments below if you find any typos or terrible grammar, etc that you think I should change. Or maybe you think my interpretation is completely off lol Help me help you have a better reading experience ahahah what a tongue twister XD
Thank yous!! (˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵)

You can support me by sending some love in the comments or through the button below


peace lilies~