National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 468 - 468 430

468: 430 468: 430 If one were to assess, the level of Forensic Anthropology expertise possessed by Jiang Yuan could definitely be ranked at LV3.7PLUS.

However, for the young forensic doctors attending the training, the gap in Forensic Anthropology between Medical Examiner Zhai and Jiang Yuan was still something beyond their comprehension.

Moreover, due to Medical Examiner Zhai’s age and style, everyone by default assumed he must be at least slightly better.

Only Medical Examiner Zhai himself, while fondling the bones, furrowed his brow.

His original idea was to see if he could use Forensic Anthropology techniques to advance the case.

He didn’t expect to solve it directly, which would be highly improbable, but felt it would be quite an achievement if he could narrow it down to a specific range that would lead to an effective level of scrutiny.

Jiang Yuan needed time to do the Skull Restoration Skill; if it were Medical Examiner Zhai, who was relatively familiar with manual skull reconstruction, it would take at least a month.

Now with computer-assisted skull restoration, it might be possible to reduce the time to one or two weeks.

But Medical Examiner Zhai believed that if he could determine an effective radius for scrutiny, even if it included tens of thousands or even a hundred thousand people, as long as the specificity was clear enough, Longli County would be willing to carry out the investigation.

As far as the political correctness of the police system was concerned, when it came to clues in a homicide case, all you had to do was charge ahead without overthinking things.

Even if leaders had many ideas, they could only ponder them privately.

However, ideas were one thing, practice was another…

“You all think it over, I’m going to go upstairs and check,” Medical Examiner Zhai said, stepping aside to let the other forensic doctors take over as he walked out the door.

They were in the basement of the Longli County Criminal Police Team, examining the bones.

The office building of the Criminal Police Team didn’t originally have an autopsy room.

Some units would have one, but the police stations in Qinghe City didn’t have such facilities.

However, the unidentified corpse 122 had already been boiled down to bones, meaning it was in a completely inert state, which is to say it was very clean.

This was done to facilitate the work for Medical Examiner Zhai from the provincial capital, as well as Jiang Yuan and the young forensic doctors from various places, which was why Captain Hou made a room available in the basement, also taking into account the needs of everyone involved.

Once Medical Examiner Zhai reached the upper floor, he took a deep breath, stretched his shoulders, and then slowly continued upstairs.

As he approached Jiang Yuan’s office, he could hear the lively noise coming from inside.

“What is this…” Medical Examiner Zhai peered in like an old man, poking his head around the door.

“Oh, Medical Examiner Zhai is here,” Hou Xiaoyong called out, alerting Jiang Yuan.

“Medical Examiner Zhai, I’m not able to come out right now, come in and take a seat,” Jiang Yuan greeted him from inside.

Only then did Medical Examiner Zhai see clearly that in the not-so-large room, several tables had been pushed together, and several detectives from the forensic team, along with Hou Xiaoyong and a team from Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad, were sitting around the tables, lively feasting on fat intestine and pig stomach chicken, as well as hotpot cooked with the same ingredients.

“What a lively scene, what’s going on?” Medical Examiner Zhai asked as he entered the room.

“Captain Jiang just restored the unidentified corpse 122; we’re celebrating,” Hou Xiaoyong said with his mouth greasy from the food.

Medical Examiner Zhai was taken aback: “Restored?”

“That’s right.

Captain Hou has already taken a team to make the arrest.”

“Gone to make an arrest?” Medical Examiner Zhai echoed.

Hou Xiaoyong nodded: “The photo restored from the skull, when checked against the police database, directly matched an ID card.

It’s a woman from a village upstream, from Yuguang Village, a farmer’s wife.

She’s been missing for such a long time without a police report, it’s highly likely it was someone she knew who committed the crime.”

Medical Examiner Zhai, not focusing on the case details Hou Xiaoyong was relating, simply asked: “The photo?”

“It’s on the table next to the computer desk,” Jiang Yuan said.

Tang Jia, who was sitting at the head of the table, quickly stood up to help Medical Examiner Zhai search.

Hou Xiaoyong grabbed another piece of pig intestine, smacking his lips as he ate, and called out, “Medical Examiner Zhai, have something to eat.”

“No need, I’m not hungry.” Medical Examiner Zhai was a bit peckish, but he had no appetite and walked over to the computer desk himself, where he found heaps of photos already laid out and not just finished ones, but many that were in various stages of completion.

Although he wasn’t skilled in Skull Restoration Skill, with his near-grade LV3 anthropology knowledge, he was sufficiently able to discern the incremental relationships between these unfinished products.

From 3D reconstruction, to referencing skull models, facial models, then marking the skull’s feature points, face’s feature points, and beginning to shape the facial model for restoration, followed by local deformation, overall deformation, until finally the model for restoration and the ultimate facial model were created…

Looking at the photographs alone, the process seemed plain and unimpressive, with no hint of any Gauss, Laplace, Lagrange, Fourier, Maxwell…

However, without those confusing formulas in the way, Medical Examiner Zhai’s sense of artistry underwent a simple and direct enhancement.

From bone to cartilage, from cartilage to muscle, from muscle to glands, then to fat and skin…

“It’s finished already?” Medical Examiner Zhai sighed and couldn’t help feeling a reluctant and humbling sense of inferiority.

“This one’s not done yet.

The completed ones are in this stack.” Tang Jia took a finished photo from another pile next to her and handed it to Medical Examiner Zhai.

Medical Examiner Zhai was taken aback again, “What do you mean?”

“I worked on three skull restorations at the same time,” Jiang Yuan called out from across the table and added, “Come over and sit, we can talk while we eat.”

He was not too keen on discussing the specifics of the technique with Medical Examiner Zhai.

The difficulty of the Skull Restoration Skill was so high that at Medical Examiner Zhai’s age, updating him with new knowledge…

Jiang Yuan felt it tiring himself.

But regarding Medical Examiner Zhai’s current state of understanding, trying to explain the technical details would be nearly the same as explaining them to a total novice.

At Jiang Yuan’s urging, the group pulled Medical Examiner Zhai over to the table.

“So you’ve already started eating,” Medical Examiner Zhai said helplessly, then repeated his earlier question like a parrot, “You said three skull restorations, what does that mean?”

“When I started using the computer to outline Unidentified Body 122, I had nothing else to do, so I opened two more cases,” Jiang Yuan explained briefly.

“I wasn’t aware of this,” Medical Examiner Zhai blurted out.

Jiang Yuan chuckled and said, “I asked Doctor Ye to cook it; it’s only been a couple of days.

One of the cases is progressing quickly and has a drawing ready, the other one is still in the contouring phase.

You’re quite lucky today; right after the result for 122 came out, Captain Hou and the others left.”

Jiang Yuan opening new cases, naturally, did not require any explanation to Medical Examiner Zhai.

He did it to save time; since the Skull Restoration Skill is a step-by-step workload, he decided to open several cases at once, like an assembly line for each skull.

And doing so naturally did not require reporting to Medical Examiner Zhai.

They were not in a hierarchical relationship.

Medical Examiner Zhai realized his slip and said awkwardly, “Then I think that the diagram I saw earlier is almost ready.

That means another case is close to being solved.”

“Whether it will solve the case, I don’t know, but in two more days, the second drawing should be ready.

Come on, come, have some food…” Jiang Yuan invited Medical Examiner Zhai as the meal continued in full swing.

Medical Examiner Zhai could only join in.

The pig intestines, stomach, and chicken were extremely fresh, and Medical Examiner Zhai also liked the rich flavor of the pepper inside, just that the soup was a bit sour.