National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 507 - 507 466

507: Chapter 466 507: Chapter 466 That day, the abbot and lay devotees all followed the police down the mountain.

Throughout the journey, the abbot’s mood was somewhat suppressed, and just as they neared the bottom, he couldn’t help reciting his own surname: “Thousand mouths of bastard Cheng, thousand mouths of bastard Cheng…”

Mu Zhiyang asked curiously what he was doing, and the abbot said, “I’m cursing someone.”

“Curse who?” Mu Zhiyang asked.

“On the surface, I’m cursing myself,” the abbot, playing with his prayer beads, said: “Even if netizens record a video, they can only say I have a peculiar temper.”

“But in reality?”

“I just want to curse by saying ‘bastard’ a few more times!” The abbot’s prayer beads twirled rapidly: “Bastard!

They are all bastards…”

Mu Zhiyang looked at the abbot’s shrewd head: “It’s a good thing your surname is Cheng…”

At that moment, the abbot spoke very philosophically: “Heaven has made me born of some usefulness, think carefully and break down the words, you will always find a bit of a surprise.

Read enough books, and you will find that in Chinese, there are ample ways to curse someone.”

What could Mu Zhiyang say?

He could only give a thumbs-up and say, “Reading is really useful.”

“That’s true,” the abbot sighed helplessly: “If benefactor Qian, Qian Guoqing had read more books, he wouldn’t have caused such a big commotion.

It’s all karma.”

Hearing this, Mu Zhiyang got interested: “How so, let’s hear it.”

The abbot said, “If benefactor Qian had studied at ‘The Great Learning,’ with his age, he would inevitably hold a cadre position, then he could only retire at 60.

That way, he wouldn’t have the time to wander around.

Given the nature of his work, he would most likely be an office worker.

When he gets older, he won’t have the energy to flirt with women everywhere, in most cases, he would probably have the spirit but lack the strength…”

Mu Zhiyang, looking at the abbot who was about 10 years older than him, genuinely said: “Indeed, it takes a monk to see things clearly.”

The abbot hummed in agreement, “Those of us who are often away from home, whether it’s dating or getting married, should think more and be more cautious.”

“Absolutely right,” Mu Zhiyang also fully expressed his opinion.

…

The Criminal Police Detachment.

Captain Han walked in, took a couple of sips of water, and then pointed to a few people, “You guys, make detailed interview records for the abbot and the pilgrims.”

One of the officers, who had just returned from the mountain, was totally numbed when he heard this: “Wasn’t the record we made last night detailed enough?”

“This is a murder case, not a prostitution case, did you ask everything that should be asked?” Captain Han said impatiently: “Everything that should be asked must be asked, from the beginning to the end, this case is most likely related to all these temple nuisances.”

But whether there is any relation to the case, even the detectives themselves don’t know.

They silently grumbled, with no other option.

Solving a murder case is bothersome, and so is working on it.

And everyone knows, if you don’t make the interview record now, and later their testimony changes, you can’t refute anything.

Lying to the police is a very stupid thing to do, but there is one exception – people who are compulsive liars.

Such people, who can’t tell the truth anyway, usually don’t get a reduced sentence but just increase the workload of the case officers.

Of course, what’s more annoying is another kind, like the lay devotees and pilgrims now.

No one believes they’re telling the entire truth, but which part is true, and which part is a lie?

Or maybe they themselves forget after talking too much.

The detectives who stayed at the Criminal Police Detachment, with some still not grasping the gravity of the situation, chuckled: “There’s no rush, just take your time with the records.”

Normal records are like that, according to working hours.

No one is in a hurry, rest when you should rest, drink water when you want to, almost like chatting.

Especially when dealing with not-so-important witnesses.

With the camera set up, there’s no need to rack your brains for a breakthrough, just talk normally.

The main workload is going back to transcribe the report or such.

However, today’s situation is clearly different.

The content of the conversation has changed.

In the past, police officers listened to talks of life’s fate with laughter.

But now, it was fate’s talk about life itself.

Seeing the kindly yet twisted expressions of the 60-year-old grandmothers, and listening to their pain and curses, several young officers quickly couldn’t bear it anymore.

Towards the end, it wasn’t the police looking for people to talk to, it was people looking for the police to talk to.

Chat and chat, chat and chat…

and the day passed.

The next day, some people staying at the Criminal Police Detachment’s guesthouse didn’t need the police comrades to urge them; they all came voluntarily to continue the chat.

Jiang Yuan passed by during work hours and saw Captain Han’s expression, feeling it was even worse than when Director Huang was around.

At least when Director Huang was there, Captain Han’s pain was clear – it was a kind of exhausted pain from being bitten and losing too much blood.

But after several days of interviews and record-taking, Captain Han had become utterly exhausted, suffering from an insidious pain where it was not clear where the injury lay.

Jiang Yuan didn’t care about all that, just like going to work in the morning, arriving at the Criminal Police Team, he went straight into his office to work on Cranial Reconstruction.

At lunchtime, he didn’t even go out to eat.

He just had a simple meal of foods brought from home, like soy-sauce pork knuckles, Buddha’s Temptation, roast meat, and pilaf, which just needed some heating to be ready to eat.

There was a microwave in the office.

Setting the timer, just a twist, and he would have a decent meal.

Even for something apparently bland like Buddha’s Temptation, by bringing a bit more broth and heating up a pot of it, then pouring some rice in, it became a good, simple lunch.

If he was hungry in the evening, he would boil some hot pot or grill some meat in the office.

The delivery industry in Qu’an County wasn’t well-developed.

The few businesses willing to deliver mainly sold products like Wallace’s and were mostly small chains.

There were no courier services available yet.

Jiang Yuan, left with no choice, could only keep a delivery guy’s WeChat and request him to bring various foods and water every day.

After getting to know Jiang Yuan’s daily routine, the delivery guy was greatly shocked and had already started to consider taking the assistant police exam.

Several days later.

Cheng and others returned to the small temple one after another.

The skull that Jiang Yuan had been working on was also gradually taking shape.

“Let’s take a few pictures,” Jiang Yuan said, directly creating images on his laptop before calling a criminal photographer from the Qu’an County Bureau to select them.

Skull reconstruction could be considered an art, and its downside was that the reconstructed faces could vary somewhat.

Simply put, each step of skull reconstruction was not extremely precise.

Generally speaking, choices were made within a certain range.

Theoretically, if the choices at each step differed greatly, the resulting face would look completely different.

However, the human eye or brain itself wasn’t built on precision alone, and as long as the differences in the reconstructed faces weren’t too significant, witnesses had a certain ability to distinguish them.

It was even easier to recognize familiar people.

When used for facial comparison or computer analysis, it might be a bit more difficult.

However, photos obtained through cranial reconstruction were much more accurate than those created by artists.

Especially domestically, most police departments actually don’t have artists, and of course, there are no cranial reconstruction experts either.

The only thing slightly related to art, criminal photographers, were usually rushed through training.

The one from Qu’an County was obviously no exception.

He chose six photos all at once, clearly adopting a ‘the more, the merrier’ approach, which indicated a complete lack of confidence.

“This should be about right.

By the way, should we make the face a whiter or yellower shade?” Those who worked in criminal photography, who most often photographed corpses, gradually came to share the forensic doctor’s aesthetic.

“It’s difficult to judge the color of facial skin, let’s go for diversity,” muttered Jiang Yuan, shaking his head in disappointment and losing his confidence in the man.

He then chose 24 photos himself.

In this way, they assembled 30 images that looked similar…

almost like 30 brothers.

Theoretically, they represented 30 people, but in reality, they all looked very similar.

When these 30 photos were uploaded to the backend system, it didn’t take long for it to start identifying individuals.

At this time, Captain Han and Liu Jinghui also rushed over.

“Let’s see what we have,” said Liu Jinghui, sitting behind Jiang Yuan, preparing to help look at the photos.

The facial recognition system used by Qu’an County was similar to the fingerprint system, operating on a candidate mode.

By default, it would spit out the faces of 20 candidates at a time for selection.

But unlike the fingerprint system, the recognition rate for human faces was much higher.

Even fingerprint experts, after extensive training, had to examine each candidate fingerprint kicked out by the automatic fingerprint identification system very carefully.

But when it came to faces, ordinary people without training could definitely say whether two photos were of the same person.

This significantly sped up the selection process.

This was another reason why skull reconstruction was so effective – because it produced faces that everyone could easily compare, and even ordinary detectives had the capability to do so.

Dozens of photos were quickly reviewed, and soon, several people decided on one photo.

“This person,” Liu Jinghui pointed and said, “Find information on this person!”

On the monitor, there was a photo of an older man with a high-bridged nose and a somewhat artistic temperament.

Looking at his identity information, he was also from Southern Ming of Yue Province.

Just by seeing the address information, everyone got excited.

Captain Han took the mouse, clicked a few times, entered a password, and soon a red “missing” alert appeared on the screen.

Almost certain now, Captain Han looked through the page more carefully and said, “This person hasn’t left DNA or fingerprints in the system, but his children did…

I’ll contact them!”

Mu Zhiyang, who had been watching dazedly, quietly asked Liu Jinghui when everyone wasn’t so busy anymore, “Director Liu, was it someone completely unrelated who died?”

“Whether it’s related or not, we won’t know until we ask.

But…” Liu Jinghui grimaced and said, “Qian Guoqing is from Yue Province, and so is this person.

I don’t believe they’re completely unrelated.”

“So, is it still a tale of love and hate?” Mu Zhiyang felt uncomfortable.

He hadn’t even had a girlfriend yet, and now the old babies in the temple were falling out of love and even starting to kill?

Were their lives moving at too different paces?

Liu Jinghui didn’t answer, saying, “It’s hard to say what the motive is, but what do you think?

Who killed them?”

Although the scenario of the sole residents of the small temple killing each other hadn’t unfolded smoothly, Liu Jinghui had other expectations.

Mu Zhiyang shook his head blankly, “They all sleep with each other, who knows who would kill someone.”

Jiang Yuan then reminded them, “The death scene is quite unusual too, deep into the road, not many people should know about it, but…”

“But what?” Captain Han immediately asked.

“If it was for a quick fling, they probably would’ve searched the surrounding area thoroughly.

The crime scene isn’t far from the road, and if one is willing to walk a bit further, it’s actually a nice spot for a murder…” Jiang Yuan, having grown up at the foot of Siningshan, understood some things.

Mu Zhiyang’s eyes widened again, “That can’t be right, they’re so old…”

“Don’t underestimate the elderly!” Liu Jinghui “hmphed” and said, “Just from how they can talk non-stop for three or four days during interrogation, and the depth of the topics they discuss…”

“Stop, there’s a visual now!” Mu Zhiyang felt the conversation was getting painful.