National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1327 - 1253: A Dignified Person

Chapter 1327: Chapter 1253: A Dignified Person

"Couldn’t find a suitable case?" Wu Zhisu was startled.

He had been considering various possibilities on his way over, and this was the worst one.

Fortunately, Huang Qiangmin lightly shook his head and said, "Only Jiang Yuan. He managed to resurrect an old high-decomposition case for you guys, the 1011 floating corpse case. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, how could I forget!" Wu Zhisu suddenly became happy. This was a cold case of drowning, grabbing any progress was worthwhile.

Don’t assume that Jiang Yuan’s Taihe Working Group is always investigating various drowning cases. When ordinary police stations encounter such cases, they find them extremely troublesome, otherwise, why would they be willing to pay the Taihe Working Group.

Wu Zhisu is the captain of the Criminal Police Brigade in Jianjiang City. Jianjiang is a prefecture-level city, on the same level as Qinghe City, and higher than Ningtai County. Yet, even as a prefecture-level city’s Criminal Police Brigade, forming a task force might still take three to five months without solving a single drowning case. With a cold case of drowning, solving it typically starts with receiving a second-class merit award.

However, experts like Jiang Yuan are hard to book, unless Jianjiang City is next to Ningtai County, where they have mutual exchanges, allowing Wu Zhisu to experience Jiang Yuan’s presence a few times.

Yet, having experienced it only makes it harder to resist.

Solving a case is like solving a problem, and cases are like math problems; most are multiple-choice questions, with the most troublesome being a fill-in-the-blank. Ordinary Criminal Police Brigades, year-round, can maybe solve a short-answer question or a slightly tricky short-answer question at best.

Normal problems can be solved in many ways, often focusing on time efficiency, discussing the cost-effectiveness ratio, aiming to complete with the least investment and the quickest speed. Correspondingly, in the police team, ordinary cases should be completed with minimal personnel and as quickly as possible, with a certain accuracy requirement but not too far off.

However, the core of difficult questions is not time but the ability to complete them. Forming a task force is like a group discussion. But the real difficult ones are so challenging that group discussions can’t solve them, and for even harder cold homicide cases, they might be unsolvable problems even for teachers in ordinary schools.

Upon seeing Jiang Yuan choose the 1011 floating corpse case, Wu Zhisu immediately tapped his head and said, "I remember this case was handled by Team One, later adding over ten people. The corpse was in terrible condition, but there were some belongings in the pockets, and we wanted to track the buyer through them, but never got any results..."

Huang Qiangmin listened casually and asked, "Did you ever restart it?"

"No. There were no new clues, so we couldn’t restart." Wu Zhisu said, glancing at Huang Qiangmin, "We agreed on this matter, you can’t suddenly raise the price, be it any case, it’s what it is, we are respectable people!"

"High-decomposition case!" Huang Qiangmin emphasized.

"Rotten is rotten, which floating corpse isn’t? Moreover, regarding this case’s wounds, we had a judgment at the time, the... forensic doctor, you explain it." Wu Zhisu quickly moved the discussion back to the case to avoid more conversations with Huang Qiangmin.

Wen Youchuan quickly stepped forward and said, "At the time, we found a crescent-shaped blunt-force trauma on the head of the corpse, preliminarily judging the murder weapon to be a hammer."

As he spoke, he hastily searched for photographs in the files. Such significant images are often printed as physical photographs.

Taking the chance while Jiang Yuan looked at the pictures, Huang Qiangmin said to Wu Zhisu, "In general, decay matters are fine, but this high-decomposition case, even if you determine the point of drowning, it’s still very difficult."

"I understand, I understand, but we agreed on this matter, it can’t change! Respectable people." Wu Zhisu stretched out his hand, grasping Huang Qiangmin’s hand.

"8 years!" Huang Qiangmin emphasized again.

This time, Wu Zhisu hesitated, asking, "Can diatoms from 8 years ago still match with those now?"

"If they match, they match; if they don’t, they don’t. It’s not like DNA," Huang Qingming said, turning to call Jiang Yuan over, "Can you explain to Wu?"

Jiang Yuan let out an "oh" and said, "In aquatic systems, there are generally high-dynamic regions and stable regions. For instance, river mouths and drainage outlets are high-dynamic areas where the diatom structure updates rapidly, and the database usually needs updating every year or so, which we haven’t done. Stable areas like slow-flow areas, deep pools, etc., may not change for ten years unless there is a triggering event. But like Commissioner Huang said, if they match, it indicates no change; if they don’t, it doesn’t rule them out."

Wu Zhisu instantly understood and repeatedly said "good," noting, "This technological update is good. In theory, if they match, then even cold cases from over ten years ago could work?"

"Assuming they match, it shows that the diatom communities in the region where the body fell haven’t changed over these years. However, generally speaking, 10 years is a threshold, as diatom community ecosystems have a stability period of about 20 years, plus human activities impact... sedimentary diatoms can be considered, but that’s outside our database scope," Jiang Yuan briefly introduced.

"That’s enough, that’s enough." Wu Zhisu wasn’t considering such long-term issues; he was just happy to be able to handle a cold case.

Huang Qiangmin looked at Wu Zhisu with a smile, saying, "High-decomposition, 8 years, right?"

"Respectable people!" Wu Zhisu repeated.

"Alright, alright. Agreed matters can’t change! Respectable people!" Huang Qiangmin shook his hand and repeated.

Originally thinking he would need to compromise again, Wu Zhisu was pleasantly surprised to see Huang Qiangmin genuinely acting as a respectable person, quickly turning to Jiang Yuan, asking, "How about it? That blunt-force trauma?"

Jiang Yuan tapped the photo and agreed, "Indeed caused by a hammer. However, diatoms were found in the victim’s bone marrow, so it should mean the victim was hit by the hammer without dying, ultimately drowning. Couldn’t find the hammer, correct?"

"No, the shape of the hammer was too ordinary. Our investigation mainly focused on the clothing wrapped around the victim, especially a button; we traced it to a tailor shop but still found no results." Wu Zhisu wasn’t the direct person in charge, yet he spoke with a slight regret, showing he was very concerned about this case.

Unfortunately, although giving importance aids in the investigation, it’s not absolute.

Jiang Yuan nodded, pushing the photo and file aside, saying, "We’ll first investigate according to diatoms then. The water entry point was upstream at Fan Family Village in Ningtai County; do you have any impression of that?"

Wu Zhisu thought seriously and slowly shook his head, saying, "I have no impression, hold on, I’ll call Zhang Yan from Team One. He went on fieldwork today; if I’d known it was this case, I’d have called him over."

He said as he took out his phone to make a call.

When the call connected, Wu Zhisu listened to a conversation between Zhang Yan and Jiang Yuan, suddenly realizing: "Wait, you guys have identified the water entry point for the victim?"

Jiang Yuan nodded: "Because it matched in the database, by checking, we know where the same diatom community is, which also determined the victim’s water entry point."

"Good, good, good..." Wu Zhisu maintained a friendly demeanor towards Jiang Yuan, turning to look at Huang Qiangmin, with a murderous look in his eyes, "Isn’t this diatom work done?"

"Respectable people!" Huang Qiangmin reminded Wu Zhisu.

A furious Wu Zhisu pointed a finger at Huang Qiangmin: "You old..."

"Old Wu, can the case be solved with just the water entry point?" Huang Qiangmin pried Wu Zhisu’s hand down.

Indeed, knowing where a person entered the water adds a clue, but it does not guarantee solving the case.

Huang Qiangmin softly said, "Our Jiang Yuan follows through to the end. Now that we know the water entry point, we search for clues near it. If we identify the victim, great; otherwise, our Jiang Yuan has forensic anthropology and, if necessary, skull restoration skills, to reconstruct the victim’s pre-death appearance. Facial recognition or distributing flyers, all of these aren’t just double or triple insurances. Don’t you want such an insurance?"

"Hmm..." Wu Zhisu admitted, being persuaded, mumbling, "Then let’s go straight with the skull restoration skill."

"Three months." Huang Qiangmin looked at Wu Zhisu, faintly saying, "Doing all this, the Taihe Working Group might not solve four cases a year."

Wu Zhisu coughed a couple of times: "Regardless of what happens next, let’s stick with the original arrangement."

"Hmm." Huang Qiangmin nodded, handing a cigarette to Wu Zhisu.

Wu Zhisu took it, pulled out a lighter, and first lit Huang Qiangmin’s cigarette.

On another side, Wang Chuanxing distributed newly collected information to the Cold Case Squad, and everyone got busy.

After finishing a cigarette, Wu Zhisu, thoroughly relaxed, took a sip of tea, ready to chat further with Huang Qiangmin.

At that moment, Tang Jia picked up some materials and said, "I have a report here from a villager in Fan Family Village. His wife has been missing for five years and he just reported it, requesting to dissolve their marriage. Calculated by time, his wife went missing eight years ago."

"Let me see!" Wu Zhisu got excited immediately.

Huang Qiangmin took the last puff of his cigarette, softly saying from behind, "Respectable people!"