Volume One: First Scroll
Case Investigation
“We are the police, we shouldn’t deal with danger, who should we leave it to? The common people?”
Jiangcheng City Criminal Investigation Detachment broke up the whole into parts1, scattering into the streets and alleys in small groups, interviewing the family members of the deceased separately. This is the most basic and most important link in daily criminal investigation work.
“Hello, Officer. While your daughter was alive, did she have any contact with patterns like ‘White Whale’ or ‘Ocean’?”
“I don’t know. My daughter doesn’t live with me.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Hello, Officer. While he was alive, did you hear your son mention words like ‘White Whale’ or ‘Deliverance’?”
The man thought for a moment, took out a diary from the room, and handed it to the officer. “Yes, oh, my son… When he was little, he had a car accident, which left him with a lingering illness2. He had difficulty walking and was often bullied by classmates at school. One time he came back and told me he didn’t want to live anymore, he wanted to find ‘White Whale’ for deliverance. I thought he was just kidding, but who knew… This is the diary my son wrote while he was alive. If it’s useful, you can take it.”
The investigator opened the diary to the first page, where a photo was clipped; it was the boy’s handsome face. He also felt a bit melancholic. “Regarding this ‘White Whale,’ did your son mention to you whether it was a person or an organization?”
“I work at the construction site during the day and come back very late at night, so we barely talked.” The man thought for a moment. “However, for a period before he passed away, he was immersed in the internet. I came back in the middle of the night and still saw him chatting with people online. I figured this ‘White Whale’ might be an online friend.”
Zheng Chengrui stepped forward. “Can we take a look at your son’s computer?”
The man opened the bedroom door for them. “Yes, please.”
The room wasn’t big, a two-bedroom, one-living room layout, simply decorated, with signs of water seepage on the ceiling.
The man lived alone and worked at the construction site. He didn’t seem very well-off, but he still bought his beloved computer for his son.
Zheng Chengrui gently blew away the dust on the keyboard, pressed the power button, and skillfully searched for useful things in the ocean of information with a myriad of threads3.
Lines of jumping blue code4 scrolled across his glasses. Time passed minute by minute. He finally extracted the keywords from the vast and boundless ocean of information.
“Ocean,” “White Whale,” “Deliverance,” “Thinking of death.”
Along with these words appearing, there was also an encrypted chat room.
His fingertips tapped on the keyboard, attempting to decrypt. Everyone held their breath. After only hearing a cold prompt tone, a big red cross appeared on the screen.
Decryption failed.
A thin bead of sweat seeped from Zheng Chengrui’s forehead. He turned his head to ask the victim’s father, “Do you know your son’s password?”
The man thought for a while, completely clueless5 about these things. “I don’t know. I’ve never even touched this thing since I bought it back, I don’t understand it at all.”
“What about your son’s birthday?”
After getting the answer, Zheng Chengrui entered a string of six-digit characters. It was still decryption failed.
He gritted his teeth. “Are there any other numbers that could be the password, or people or things that were significant to your son?”
People or things that were significant.
The man thought for a moment, and his gaze fell upon the photo of his deceased wife placed next to the computer.
“Try his mother’s birthday.”
“Okay.” Zheng Chengrui clasped his fingertips together, took a deep breath, and entered the characters.
After a brief silence, nothing happened. Just as they thought decryption was successful, a whale slowly appeared on the computer screen, slowly turning from white to red, with blood seeping out.
“Damn it!” Zheng Chengrui inwardly thought, ‘This is bad.’ Before he could even react, the whale burst open with a bang, fluorescent blue fragments filled the air, and immediately the computer screen went black and crashed.
He kept tapping on the keyboard, wanting to restore the program, but the computer kept emitting a cold prompt tone.
“Sorry, the program is damaged, unable to start.”
“Sorry, the program is damaged, unable to start.”
“Sorry, the program is damaged, unable to start.”
…
He slumped and lowered his hands. “This chat room not only set up an unconventional encryption program, but also wrapped another layer of self-destruct program outside the encryption program. When the password was entered incorrectly three consecutive times, the self-destruct program would activate. I’m sorry, I was careless.”
A teammate patted his shoulder. “It’s okay. Let’s go back and report to Captain Song, and then slowly figure out a way to recover.”
Song Yuhang and Lin Yan worked from day until night, and also obtained quite a bit of information about “White Whale.”
Although they had agreed on three rules, how could Miss Lin be the kind of person who keeps her word?
“Hey—” she dragged out her voice calling her. “Song Yuhang, I can’t walk anymore.”
Song Yuhang paid no attention, carrying her bag on her back, with a notebook for taking notes tucked under her arm, and continued walking forward.
“Officer Song…” Lin Yan weakly pulled at the corner of her clothes. “Can we stop walking? I haven’t even had a sip of water all day, do you think you’re race walking?”
Song Yuhang turned her head to look at her. “You were the one who wanted to come along, and we made a pact. Are you going to break your word?”
Lin Yan was speechless for a moment, itching with anger. “I—”
“Hurry up, we still have to go back to the city bureau for a meeting in a bit.” Song Yuhang said, shaking her head slightly, and turned to leave.
The fabric slipped from her palm. Lin Yan gritted her teeth, lifted her foot, and followed.
Damn it, if it weren’t for the fact that she also just wanted to solve the case, Lin Yan would have gone up and punched her long ago.
Thinking this, she leaned on the wall and managed to walk two steps. The skin on her heel was rubbed raw by the high heel strap, hurting badly.
Lin Yan bit her lower lip tightly, and her face was a bit pale.
Song Yuhang looked back and saw she still hadn’t caught up.
“What’s wrong?”
Lin Yan was bending down to untie the bothersome strap. “It’s nothing, I can still—”
Before she finished speaking, her wrist was suddenly grabbed by someone.
Song Yuhang squatted down. “Don’t move, let me see.”
Lin Yan rested her hand on her shoulder. Song Yuhang used one hand to steady her, and without waiting for her to stop her, her other hand had already taken off the shoe from her foot.
“You don’t have to…” Lin Yan’s face was slightly red.
Song Yuhang held her foot in her hand. Her heel was rubbed bright red, and a large piece of skin was broken.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“Did you give me a chance to speak? All this way, we were either interviewing the family members of the deceased or rushing along, so there really wasn’t any time to talk.”
Song Yuhang rubbed her nose, looked around. “Let’s find a place to sit for a bit. In the future, you can speak up in situations like this.”
“Future? Don’t talk about the future! I never want to come out with you again!” After walking all afternoon, Lin Yan was parched and her feet hurt, she snapped.
Song Yuhang put her foot back into the shoe, supported her as she walked. “It’s also your fault. You knew it would be tough, but you still came out wearing high heels.”
“Don’t know who was so impatiently rushing for time, otherwise, could I, your mother, have run out without even having time to change clothes?” Lin Yan shot back, and as she bickered with her, she felt her feet didn’t hurt as much anymore.
Song Yuhang couldn’t be bothered to deal with her spoiled young lady temper. “What do you want to eat? Let’s go get something to eat and rest for a bit while we’re at it.”
Lin Yan let her support her, looked at the dazzling array of signs along the street, pointed with her hand. “Let’s go to that one.”
Milan Bar.
In the evening, the bar had just opened, and there weren’t many people yet. Bai Ling stood at the front desk wiping cups. The curtain was unexpectedly lifted by someone, and the wind chimes at the entrance rang out.
She looked up and was immediately overjoyed. “Jiejie, you’re here.”
Song Yuhang helped the person sit down properly at the bar counter. “You order first, I’ll go buy something.”
When Bai Ling came out with the menu, she exchanged a glance with Song Yuhang. The woman gave a gentle smile as a greeting, turned around, pushed open the door, and walked out.
There was a hint of mischief in the girl’s eyes. “Jiejie, are you with a friend again?”
Lin Yan leaned lazily against the bar counter, her long legs resting on the floor. The strap of one high heel wasn’t fastened properly, loose and swinging back and forth. A single glance was captivating.
“Her? She’s definitely not a friend.”
Bai Ling pushed the menu towards her, asked innocently with wide eyes. “What was that? That night, she not only protected you, I even saw her hug you at the bathroom door.”
Lin Yan choked halfway to death on a mouthful of water she hadn’t swallowed. “Cough cough… Children shouldn’t meddle or watch too much in adult matters. One Mojito, one lemonade, two waffles, tell the back kitchen to hurry up, I’m starving to death.”
Bai Ling showed a sly smile, and handed the written order to the guy in the back kitchen.
Fourteen or fifteen is exactly the age when one’s heart first awakens to love6. Although she didn’t quite understand what the relationship was between this beautiful and kind older sister and that short-haired woman who just left, she could also see the undercurrents7 between them, as well as the blatant concern in each other’s eyes.
Lin Yan watched her write. Her strokes were strong, and her handwriting was neat.
“Oh, not bad. What grade are you in junior high?”
Bai Ling gave a sweet smile. “I’m in third year of junior high. Next year is the high school entrance exam. I hope I can get into a provincial key school8.”
When the girl said this, a faint hint of worry appeared. Her mother was bedridden, and she must work hard to get into a provincial key school and also get a scholarship. Otherwise, just relying on her meager salary, it would be difficult to support her mother’s high medical expenses.
Lin Yan took a sip of her drink, read the situation. “What, are you having difficulties?”
The girl came back to her senses and smiled, refusing her kind offer. “No, I’m already very satisfied with things as they are now. Thank you, Jiejie.”
That sum of money from last time just happened to solve her urgent need9.
Facing the girl’s sincere gratitude, Lin Yan turned her face away, feeling a bit awkward. “No, no need to thank me, thank me for what? What I lack least is money.”
Bai Ling looked at the glamorous her, feeling a bit envious and also a bit longing. She secretly made up her mind that in the future, she also wanted to learn from Jiejie, to become such a woman who is full of a sense of justice, kind, beautiful, and generous, to help those who need help.
“Oh, right, Jiejie, I just learned a new way to mix drinks. Want me to mix one for you?”
She had no way to repay her, so she could only put effort into these small things.
“Sure.”
Lin Yan lightly tapped the tabletop with her fingertips, watching her mix drinks, but what she was thinking about was why Song Yuhang had been gone so long and still hadn’t come back. She couldn’t have left her, this burden10, and run off by herself, right?
Just as she was thinking this, Song Yuhang ran back, her expression was a bit off.
“Quick, let’s go!”
She urged Lin Yan. Their eyes met, and it was already clear—the case was here.
Lin Yan got down from the bar stool, took out her wallet, threw a few red bills onto the bar counter without even counting how many, waved her hand, turned around, and left.
“Goodbye, little sister.”
By the time Bai Ling took the extra money and chased after them, the two of them had already gotten into a taxi and merged into the traffic.
At that time, Lin Yan still didn’t know that this was the last time she would see this little sister named Bai Ling, and ultimately didn’t have time to tell her her own name.
When she and Song Yuhang rushed to the side of the moat11, it was already late. The scene was cordoned off with police tape, and the onlookers outside the line were standing on tiptoe, craning their necks to watch, whispering amongst themselves.
“Heard it’s another suicide?”
“Exactly, watched with their own eyes as he jumped off the bridge.”
“When he jumped off the bridge, he was still clutching a test paper in his hand, tsk tsk tsk, truly tragic.”
“If you don’t do well on the test, you don’t do well. Just work harder and try again next time. Still so young, what a pity.”
…
Song Yuhang stepped past the onlookers, pushed aside the police tape, first let Lin Yan go through, and followed closely behind herself.
The large and small branch bureaus and police stations under the Jiangcheng City Bureau also received notice from their superiors to cooperate fully with the special investigation team to solve the case. Therefore, the entire Jiangcheng City public security system became highly alert as soon as they heard the two words “suicide.” Without any delay at all, as soon as they received a report from the public, the police officers from the nearest police station had arrived in less than five minutes.
Lin Yan had someone get her a pair of gloves, preparing for the autopsy. When she turned her head, Song Yuhang was still standing up there.
“What’s wrong? Could the dignified Captain Song also be afraid of water ghosts12?”
Song Yuhang pursed her lips, strode down. “I know this person, I saw him yesterday afternoon.”
When she went to the school yesterday afternoon, she had a brief encounter with this boy in the hallway.
Song Yuhang bent down, gently turned his jaw. A faint small mole appeared on his chin.
She was a criminal police officer, and naturally had the ability to never forget what she had seen13, especially when it came to recognizing people.
“That’s right, it’s him.”
The two of them exchanged a glance, seeing the gravity in each other’s eyes.
“Another victim has appeared.”
“Lin-jie, which of these two bodies should we dissect first?”
Due to the needs of the case, Fan Lin’s body was also brought back from the funeral home.
Lin Yan was changing clothes outside, looked back. “Dissect them together. Have the assistant forensic doctor handle Fan Lin’s side. I’ll look at this one first, and I’ll go over after I’m done here in a bit.”
The assistant forensic doctor nodded, walked to her side to wash hands and change clothes. “Okay.”
She shook the water off her hands, looked up and saw herself in the mirror. In a white protective suit and blue mask, her eyebrows and eyes appeared even sharper.
Lin Yan took a deep breath, walked into the autopsy room. Let’s go, let her see exactly what kind of demons and monsters14 are at work.
Duan Cheng set up the camera. “September 26, 2008, 8:05 PM (20:05). Fan Lin, Wu Wei. The first body dissection is now beginning.”
As the body dissection work here proceeded in an orderly manner, the discussion about the case in the training room also entered a fever pitch15.
Zheng Chengrui opened the computer, brought up the morning’s interface to show them. “It’s like this. This is an encrypted chat room. You must obtain the key to enter. If the key is entered incorrectly three consecutive times, the account will be frozen, and the program self-destructs.”
Song Yuhang leaned on the table with one hand, bending down to look. “Can you find the other party’s IP address?”
A cyber security team member shook his head and said, “No, we checked. It’s an overseas server. We can’t trace the specific IP address.”
“So, if you want to enter this secret chat room, it can only be done through the key?”
Zheng Chengrui nodded, his expression grim. “If we decrypt the key, a six-digit combination has tens of thousands of variations. This workload is too massive. Maybe before we can decrypt it, the next one will…”
On the first day the special investigation team was established, the invisible enemy harshly gave the police a show of force16.
Song Yuhang’s expression changed rapidly. She thought of the dead boy’s face, Fan Lin’s face, He Miao’s face, as well as the faces of more young men and women she had never met but who would forever live on in photographs.
She pulled up a chair and sat down, gritted her teeth and typed. “Since this move doesn’t work, then let’s try luring the snake out of its hole17.”
A flash of inspiration18 flashed in Zheng Chengrui’s mind. “Oh, you mean…”
As he spoke, Song Yuhang had already opened various search interfaces, entered the two words “suicide,” and countless red and green forums popped up.
The others also suddenly realized.
Someone hesitated and said, “Captain Song, what if the other party is a vicious and evil person? Isn’t this too dangerous?”
“We are the police, we shouldn’t deal with danger, who should we leave it to? The common people?” She finished speaking lightly, her hand movements didn’t stop, and she had already left a post saying “I want to commit suicide” on a forum.
The others from the cyber security team looked at each other. Zheng Chengrui was the first to open his computer and also started typing.
As long as one person followed suit, the others also returned to their respective workstations and started going online to post.
In the large training room, the sound of typing on keyboards clattered.
Time passed minute by minute. Lin Yan performed the autopsy meticulously. After bending over and standing for a long time, a thin layer of sweat seeped from her forehead, and there were also traces of sweat soaking the protective suit on her back.
They respectively examined the deceased’s heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, etc., and found no suspicious points.
Lin Yan picked up the scissors from the tray. Her hands were already like they had been scooped out of bloody water.
“Cut open the stomach. Examine the stomach contents.”
A pungent smell spread out.
Duan Cheng turned away and dry-heaved a few times, then quickly turned back and aimed the camera at the deceased.
Lin Yan scooped it out with her bare hands, with a gurgling sound. Red, yellow, and white stuff all spilled out. It was simply the scene of an epic horror movie and disaster film.
Duan Cheng’s face was alternating between green and white, and he couldn’t help but start dry-heaving again.
Lin Yan’s expression was as usual, she didn’t even frown. While turning it over, she scooped it out with a spoon. “Most of the stomach contents have moved towards the duodenum19, and have undergone a considerable degree of digestion. Visibly, it is…”
She paused and said, “Rice, tomatoes…”
The spoon scooped up a lump of minced meat. She took off her mask and brought it to her nose. “And beef.”
…
The others looked at her with horrified expressions. The pen in the hand of the intern forensic doctor responsible for taking notes stopped.
Lin Yan didn’t even lift her head. “What are you gawking for? Keep writing!”
The little forensic doctor finally came back to his senses. “Okay, okay, okay, just said, said…”
Lin Yan continued, “According to the degree of digestion of the stomach contents, the time of death was roughly 2 to 3 hours after eating, estimated…”
Two autopsies. Lin Yan worked for six hours. When she came out, it was already 2 AM.
The training room was still brightly lit.
She came out after showering, wiping her hair, to find Song Yuhang. The person hadn’t arrived yet, but the fragrance had arrived first.
To cover up the smell of decaying bodies on her body, every time after finishing an autopsy, she would spray a large amount of perfume. Essentially, she was still someone who loved beauty.
Song Yuhang didn’t even lift her head, pointed to the boxed meal left for her on the table. “Preserved egg and lean meat congee, eat.”
As soon as he heard about food, Zheng Chengrui poked his head out from behind the computer opposite, with a look of heartache and indignation. “Why are we all just ordinary takeout boxed meals, and Forensic Doctor Lin gets preserved egg and lean meat congee?!”
Immediately, several heads uniformly poked out, making Song Yuhang feel a bit embarrassed. She laughed and scolded, “It’s good enough to have food, and you’re still being picky, get back to work!”
Lin Yan gave her a meaningful glance with a thoughtful expression. Her hair tips were still wet from just showering, her curly hair hung smoothly on her shoulders, and water droplets trickled down along her collarbone.
“How did Captain Song know I like congee?”
Song Yuhang couldn’t bear it anymore. “In public, with so many people of the opposite sex in the training room, can you not come out strolling around wearing a tank top and camisole every time after showering?”
Lin Yan sat a bit closer, opened the lid of the boxed meal. The congee was still warm. She ate intermittently, leaning closer to look at her computer screen.
“What I wear is my freedom. Is Captain Song really being nosy, or…” She paused, biting the spoon, looked up at her, her gaze shifting, with a hint of desire within her innocence.
“Don’t want others to see me.”
Song Yuhang’s not-very-obvious Adam’s apple moved. She turned her face away, not planning to pay attention to her.
Lin Yan, however, smiled again, leaned back in her chair, and looked at her casually. “Hey, I have some new findings, want to hear?”
Song Yuhang immediately turned back. At the same time, she picked up her jacket and threw it to her. “If you have something to say, say it quickly; if you have gas, release it, and put your clothes on properly while you’re at it.”
Lin Yan was hit squarely on the head by the throw. She wasn’t angry either, it just so happened she was a bit cold, so she took it and covered herself with it.
“I examined his stomach contents. Inside, there was rice, tomatoes, beef, etc. The estimated time of death should be within 2 to 3 hours after eating.”
Song Yuhang raised an eyebrow. As expected of a smart person, she learns one thing and applies it to three others20. “Wu Wei is a boarding student. His three meals a day were all eaten in the school cafeteria. I’ll have someone check their school’s menu for today. If these things weren’t in the dinner, it means he didn’t eat at school, and the person who ate with him could be the last person who saw him alive.”
She paused and said slowly, “It could also be the murderer.”
LP: Re-translated on April 22, 2025
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😁suddenly a scratched foot is more itchy than the injuries before
😁suddenly a scratched foot is more itchy than the injuries before