National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1064 - 997: Advantage

Chapter 1064: Chapter 997: Advantage

"Cui is such a piece of crap... but a character indeed."

Tao Lu assigned tasks to Cui and the others, then watched his retreating figure and said, "Jokes aside, Cui does have some intuition. It’s a bit like a sixth sense."

"Is it really amazing?" Liu Jinghui asked.

"I don’t know about amazing, but we indeed encountered it several times." Tao Lu mainly explained to Song Tiancheng and the leadership of the sub-bureau, and incidentally imparted some strange knowledge.

"Actually, it’s not that strange, some cases and people have many coincidences," Song Tiancheng said something highbrow but useless.

Liu Jinghui, who is from outside Beijing, laughed and said, "If we’re talking about prodigies, I’ve seen quite a few. Some indeed have something special, including intuition. Some people are just sharper than others."

Tao Lu laughed it off with a "haha" and said, "Us police talking about this might come across as superstitious."

In his heart, Liu Jinghui thought, it’s not like people in Beijing don’t engage in superstitions. Changing the subject, he continued in a mode that Beijingers like, "This stuff can be explained scientifically too. Esoteric explanations like higher-dimensional projections or influences of dark matter, more down-to-earth ones like the influence of magnetic fields, similar to pigeons, or the simplest version like the experience model, or special physiological structures, like wild boars finding truffles."

With this said, Tao Lu indeed nodded his approval, in his view, Cui Qishan belonged to the latter category.

"If Cui were to dig up Yao Zi’s body, that would really make things interesting," Tao Lu said meaningfully, but his expression was anything but amused.

This case is a huge pain! If another informed person dies, then it really turns into a deadly hassle!

Liu Jinghui comforted him, "It’s unlikely, it’s a case from over 20 years ago, where could you even start looking for the body?"

A deep sigh sounded from behind: "Don’t worry. Even if Captain Cui digs up Yao Zi’s body, we wouldn’t recognize it."

The speaker was Xiao Si, sitting in the corner, flipping through old case files and documents. Not wanting to take Xiao Si with him, Cui Qishan dumped him in Jiang Yuan’s team to work, not minding if Xiao Si was lost. If Jiang Yuan dared to request him, Cui Qishan would dare to send him away.

The words made Tao Lu feel as uncomfortable as if he were constipated.

The discomfort lay in the fact that what Xiao Si said was true.

Indeed, up to this point, neither the police nor the suspects know what Yao Zi looked like; they didn’t have his fingerprints or DNA either. Wang Futing had seen Yao Zi, but he hadn’t scrutinized him or was good at remembering faces; with the years gone by, what Yao Zi looked like was beyond Wang Futing’s ability to describe.

Actually, the appearance doesn’t matter. It’s only because of Jiang Yuan’s Skull Restoration Skill that there’s a basis for discussing appearance, otherwise, whether Yao Zi is dead or alive, it has nothing to do with his looks. This does not even take into account the increasingly common cosmetic surgery and makeup techniques that could be used.

Considering various possibilities, Jiang Yuan couldn’t help but shake his head and silently went back to checking the files.

He didn’t oppose Tao Lu’s strategy; with some luck, even an unskilled punch could sometimes kill an expert. In fact, most criminal investigations don’t need precision; just a chaotic punch-throwing approach is usually enough to solve the cases.

The technological revolution of the 21st century has been formidable enough to give technologically illiterate people the impression that everything is trivial, even making them see everything as amateurish.

But then again, since the stage is already set, a few people going up and performing a song and dance might just make it successful.

Like with many cases nowadays, using the word "solving" seems insufficient—they just scan with a police PDA, and the result comes out directly. The real test for detectives has increasingly become civilized law enforcement and issues of evidence compliance.

However, the Jianmen Court case is quite the opposite.

It is a case with a backlog of murders, and because of the special identity of the deceased, Zhang Xiaoming, the grandson of the Zhang family, the case is on the one hand basically maximized in terms of resources, and on the other hand, its direction of investigation is restricted.

Anything related to politics is a hassle, especially in criminal cases, which are meant to pursue the truth, but what truth is there in politics? In politics, it’s all about choosing sides.

If the death of Zhang Xiaoming really involved political reasons, even Jiang Yuan would find it difficult to investigate.

To be exact, investigating politically related cases requires even more precise investigations.

Indeed, Jiang Yuan could ask Zhang Xiaoya, the sister of Zhang Xiaoming, to provide a lot of relevant information. Given Jiang Yuan’s standing today, Zhang Xiaoya is likely willing to help, but without accurate preliminary investigations, what information should Zhang Xiaoya provide?

And how can Zhang Xiaoya judge which information is worth revealing and which is not.

If it’s a common criminal case, the police’s requirement is actually to reveal everything. In the interrogation or inquiry room, the police ask very meticulously, and this level of detail is completely different from a casual conversation. Even more so in terms of breadth. As for what things are useful to the case and what are not,

Moreover, in situations like the Zhang Family’s and with an identity like Zhang Xiaoya’s—who knows a lot of information—is it appropriate to reveal everything?

Some things, she might be willing to talk about, but others may not want to listen.

On the other hand, a lot of politically related information is subjective by nature, mostly comprised of hearsay or, to put it more euphemistically, comes from a synthesis and reanalysis of information from stakeholders.

Should subjective information like this be revealed? And if so, how much truth does it hold?

But if these subjective messages are not conveyed, what then? Take, for example, the death of Zhang Xiaoming; was it because of enemies of the Zhang Family? And who are these enemies of the Zhang Family? Even this question cannot be answered objectively.

Therefore, even if Zhang Xiaoya ultimately needs to answer some questions, Jiang Yuan also needs to know what those questions are.

These can only be extracted from case files.

Looking through them takes a whole day.

Getting up the next day, he continues his examination.

Criminal science and technology is essentially a technique. To say that solving a case is like solving a problem might seem a bit frivolous, but the basic process is indeed as such.

Jiang Yuan goes through the case files, hoping to obtain more known conditions or, alternatively, to find a breakthrough from the existing conditions.

These two tasks are carried out concurrently. From time to time, Jiang Yuan also receives briefings from others, offering a general description of the case files they have reviewed.

This allows Jiang Yuan to get a general understanding of the full scope of the case and, if he’s interested, to delve deeper into reading them.

At the same time, more information continues to arrive, especially the newly taken photos, which are sent in huge quantities, and occasionally, newly restored film rolls are delivered.

After two days of reviewing the materials this way, that afternoon—without any prior notice and without anyone reminding him—Jiang Yuan’s eyes landed on a close-up photo of a grain of printing ink clay.

The ink clay came from under the victim’s fingernails, which wasn’t that strange. The victim Zhang Xiaoming’s workplace had its own printing shop responsible for printing some internal promotional documents, and it was a place Zhang Xiaoming often visited.

Moreover, at that time, the print quality of mimeographed materials was unstable, so even without visiting the printing shop, but merely by handling mimeographed products, one could occasionally get such ink clay stuck under their fingernails.

However, situations where the ink clay is only found under the nails while the other parts of both hands are clean are very rare.

Jiang Yuan then revisited the scene-of-crime photos and followed that up by carefully reading Wang Futing’s testimony.

If there’s any advantage to the current investigation over that of 20 years ago, Wang Futing would be the main part. After all, he is an eyewitness to the case, although with limited effectiveness and capability...

Concerning the murder process, although the time was extremely short, the police officers responsible for the interrogation performed a very detailed inquiry dutifully and responsibly.

Jiang Yuan quickly found the process of physical contact between the murderer and the victim.

At the moment Zhang Xiaoming fell to the ground, he should have had a brief contact with the murderer. At least that’s how Wang Futing saw it—that he had touched the murderer.

Thus, if the source of the ink clay did indeed transfer from the murderer, then there’s a high probability that the murderer was a colleague.

This would also explain a lot of questions, such as why the murderer would kill upon seeing the victim and why the constantly busy Jianmen Court couldn’t screen out the murderer.

However, just a hint of ink clay is still not enough.

Jiang Yuan thought for a while and then called Wang Chuanxing, saying, "Do a statistic for me, check who among the people who worked with Zhang Xiaoming have climbed the ranks... Um, work on this statistic later, first see how many of the people who used to live in Jianmen Court have risen up the ranks!"

To say, this method of directly looking for the beneficiaries is also an advantage not available in the past.