National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1045 - 978: Xu Jin

Chapter 1045: Chapter 978: Xu Jin

After Cui Qishan agreed with Liu Jinghui’s plan, he didn’t report to Tao Lu, and went directly to find the office manager. He then casually visited several Criminal Police Squad offices and called some colleagues from departments like the Public Security Brigade along the way.

The police’s undercover agents, informers, and sources are clearly distinguished. Among them, undercover agents are the most prestigious, rarely seen in ordinary cases. Informers and sources can be official or unofficial; the use of the former is quite strict, so they are generally disliked.

More often than not, police officers who have been on the job for a while naturally get to know some fringe figures, exchange a few phone numbers, and can ask around if needed.

Some officers even skip the step of exchanging phone numbers, selecting some particularly unintelligent targets—there really are such people, and they’re not hard to find, just keep a close eye on them.

For instance, a detective might pick one or a few dimwitted thieves. Since these thieves aren’t very capable, they often prefer to work in teams. Just spend a little time understanding their habits—like some who post blessings or photos on social media with location tags before committing a crime. Once you spot that, capturing them is certain.

While capturing, one might intentionally let the dimwitted thief escape, allowing him the "luck" to flee and regroup after calming down.

For particularly useful dimwitted thieves who find it increasingly hard to regroup, one could even arrest them once and send them to a detention center to expand their network.

All in all, different police officers have their own styles. Having worked in the Criminal Police Brigade for so many years, Cui Qishan may not know every detail, but he has a general understanding of his colleagues’ capabilities.

He shared what he could, without trying to cover every aspect.

He just needed to spread the word, not create a hurricane.

Meanwhile, Jiang Yuan specifically went to the Image Investigation Brigade, but came up empty-handed.

The larger the city and the larger the division, the stronger the Image Investigation capabilities, with more up-to-date equipment and more competent personnel.

Jiang Yuan possesses LV6 Image Investigation—trajectory analysis, which theoretically could track a suspect’s location using the city’s surveillance videos. However, precisely because Jiang Yuan possesses this LV6 skill, he was keenly aware that it wasn’t going to be useful this time.

At least not in the early stages of the manhunt.

The suspect didn’t have exceptional anti-surveillance capabilities or conditions. The suspect jumped over the police station wall at two in the morning and escaped on a shared bicycle. Monitoring a suspect riding a shared bicycle on the streets of Beijing at dawn doesn’t require LV2 skills.

Even if the suspect moved through streets and alleys, executing tricky maneuvers, it was unlikely to evade the scrutiny of Image Investigation in such conditions. Under these circumstances, perhaps the software’s built-in AI function could locate the fugitive.

And the Beijing Bureau is not lacking in talent; it also has excellent Image Investigators. Before Cui Qishan and Tao called Jiang Yuan, they surely consulted the best Image Investigation experts available.

But, no matter how skilled the Image Investigation experts were, they couldn’t compensate for a suspect heading straight into the wilderness.

With no surveillance, a short distance might still be manageable, but longer tracks are hard to determine. It could be possible with a vehicle, but on foot, it would only be more challenging.

Jiang Yuan estimated that the suspect likely spent the night in some park.

Parks have water and toilets, and fewer surveillance cameras, even fewer networked ones. Of course, if the suspect was harsher on himself, then hiding becomes easier. Enduring a night like this, the suspect could change tracks during the next day’s morning rush hour to make his escape in various ways.

As the saying goes, "There’s a track for mice and a path for snakes," Jiang Yuan wasn’t sure about the situation in Beijing, but in Qinghe City, a local thief familiar with the area could simply head to any bus stop outside a station to leave the city. This is also one reason why many bus stations strictly prohibit off-site soliciting.

Circumventing places like train stations is a common strategy in smaller cities.

On returning from the Image Investigation Brigade, Jiang Yuan found Cui Qishan and others already making defensive preparations.

Looking at the time, it had been 12 hours since the suspect escaped.

"If he keeps running, he might have already left the city," Cui Qishan said with a slight unease.

"As long as he hasn’t left the country, it’s all the same," Liu Jinghui waved his hand, emotionally reassuring Cui Qishan, then turned to Jiang Yuan, "Jiang Yuan, have you ever been to the neighboring province?"

Jiang Yuan shook his head: "No, I haven’t."

"I haven’t been here either," Liu Jinghui looked back at Cui Qishan.

Cui Qishan gave a bitter smile: "I knew some people there. But I’ve offended them all."

"No problem," Liu Jinghui chuckled and continued, "So, are we still going to wave the flag of Jiang Yuan? Or does your unit have someone else who could be of use?"

"If it’s Captain Jiang, the effect would be better," Cui Qishan quickly explained to Jiang Yuan, "Captain, our Image Investigation database and such have no connection with those in the neighboring province. If you could give them a heads up, that would be best."

"Would my contacting them be useful?" Jiang Yuan understood Cui Qishan’s meaning, but was somewhat hesitant.

"Your call would definitely be useful, extremely useful!" Cui Qishan said with a laugh, "Given your current reputation, if they know it’s your case, everyone would certainly be willing to facilitate."

Many of the databases within domestic systems or applications of advanced technology are organized by province. This has historical precedents and also relates to funding and administration.

When everyone started building them, preparations were made at the provincial level or even lower, with few nationally integrated databases.

As a result, the data in Province A and Province B are independent of each other. A few years ago, even DNA and fingerprint data were separated by province, with suspects in important cases being handed over to the ministry, which then disseminated information to the provinces.

Nowadays, some provinces are interconnected, but many are still not fully networked. Thus, if someone runs to the neighboring province, and you want to search for data, you can’t do it directly and must contact the relevant department in that province.

Although the ministry can help with official inquiries, unless one is a foreign guest or perhaps a person from the European Union or the United States, they would better understand the limitations of state rights.

All in all, even for the police, in such circumstances, person-to-person communication is vastly superior to cold official letters.

Jiang Yuan didn’t mind using his personal influence; being an expert, reputation is also a part of strength, thus he said, "I have no problem making the call, but I don’t know anyone, nor do I have any phone numbers."

"Don’t worry, I will arrange everything. When the time comes, you just need to say a few words on the call. Rest assured, if there’s nothing else, the Beijing Bureau surely knows how to handle such matters," Cui Qishan said, visibly more relaxed.

Anyone who has been a criminal police officer knows that there are two types of officers adept at operations: one type is the ’iron-footed’ type, who rely on hard and outstanding efforts to bravely overcome all difficulties. The other type is the ’relationship’ type, mostly older officers with connections in other cities or provinces.

In this context, an acquaintance isn’t just someone you know; it has to be someone with mutual recognition, capable of resolving matters with a single phone call.

Compared to the former, relational-type criminal police officers are naturally rarer. Many leaders of criminal police teams fall into this category.

Cui Qishan is neither the ’iron-footed’ type nor the ’relational’ type, mainly because he is fundamentally not a criminal police officer skilled in operations.

But as long as Jiang Yuan is by his side, Cui Qishan is sufficient.