National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 702 - 645: A Familiar Feeling

Chapter 702: Chapter 645: A Familiar Feeling

"Alright then. Since Liu Cheng and his team are so eager, you can lead a team over and help them with the case. Do you think it can be solved?" After listening to Jiang Yuan’s explanation, Huang Qiangmin spoke to himself for a while before remembering to ask about the difficulty of the case.

On his way over, Jiang Yuan had already considered the case and said, "Whether it can be solved is not certain, but there’s hope. With clothes, we can use legal botany; pollen and spores are also hard to wash away if the bloodstains are not cleaned thoroughly. Bloodstains themselves carry DNA, and there are usage traces; we might even find the DNA of the murderer."

Jiang Yuan paused here before adding, "The only issue is that I’m not familiar with the environment in Beijing; the population is quite large, and it’s hard to say whether it will still be easy to find people after narrowing down the area."

Huang Qiangmin clicked his tongue twice and said, "Listening to you, it seems there’s a good chance of making a breakthrough in this case, so that’s doable. You can lead the team over. Consider this a trial; you don’t need to worry too much. If you can solve the case, do so, and if not, just say it outright. It’s all voluntary help anyway."

"Voluntary help?" Jiang Yuan looked at Huang Qiangmin’s mouth with some surprise.

"Yes, our Ningtai County Bureau often has to travel to Beijing for work. We’ll earn a favor, and this way, when our colleagues go there in the future, they’ll at least have a place to stay." Huang Qiangmin was never worried about the payment ability of the Beijing Bureau.

Unlike what most people might imagine, police work, when it involves physical tasks, generally requires travel. A few years ago, any business related to penguins would have had to queue up at the capital of Antarctica, and any business involving Alipay would have had to queue at West Lake.

Even for ordinary citizens, there’s no such thing as inquiring about various privacies over a phone call; you always have to make a visit and present something. At the very least, you need to be in uniform, and the other party might still feel the need to dial 110 for verification.

The same goes for various foreign branches or large companies; if you want to investigate them, you have to take a letter to their headquarters. On the other hand, the prosperity of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou attracts not only young people but also criminals of various types like Luo Rongzhi.

Without further ado, Jiang Yuan called up a team and booked flights to Beijing, telling Wang Chuanxing to send the flight information to Liu Cheng.

That night, the two sides met at the airport.

To Jiang Yuan’s surprise, Liu Cheng had also arranged a convoy of three business vans to take them straight to the hotel, proudly saying, "It can’t compare to an Alphard, but here, we can certainly ensure the basic conditions, especially in terms of the budget for handling cases, which is quite sufficient."

Jiang Yuan touched the leather of the seat and nodded in agreement, "Indeed, our domestic business vans have more spacious interiors. The Ningtai County Bureau can’t compare to the Beijing Bureau; two years ago, the best cars we had were the Jetta King and the Santana—the Jetta King had smooth gear shifting, and the Santana had responsive brakes."

Mu Zhiyang and others in the car let out quiet laughter.

Compared to the current situation, the vehicles of the County Bureau indeed might seem like a joke.

Liu Cheng laughed along for a moment, but then sighed and said, "The Ningtai County Bureau is different now. From what I see, even just in terms of vehicle conditions, it’s quite good."

"Director Huang does have a knack for this," Jiang Yuan laughed.

Now Liu Cheng also knew what was going on and laughed too, "Commissioner Huang also has your support..."

He wasn’t trying to lure Jiang Yuan anymore. Knowing their deep-rooted childhood friendship, his charm was limited, and it wouldn’t work; if Jiang Yuan could be useful, they would utilise his help.

However, regarding sincerity, Liu Cheng did show plenty of it. Setting aside whether the dinner that night was good, the individual meal system drove the price up, which in itself was proof of the attention and ample funding Liu Cheng had mentioned—it wasn’t just talk.

Jiang Yuan also enjoyed the meal. If Lin’an were a culinary desert, then Beijing, at most, would be an oasis in the northern desert—there was some good food, but not much. And undoubtedly, one had to lower their standards.

However, on the other hand, as the capital of virtue, the city’s resources were inevitably decent, so while taste might be lacking, the presentation could compensate somewhat.

The pure individual serving system was quite distinctive. It equated to numerous plates of small dishes, and the benefit was that each dish required individual seasoning, which was complicated and exhausting for the chefs during busy times. But for diners, every dish was complete, with main and side dishes complementing each other.

It was like a simple dish of blue-and-white fish, a rather inexpensive ingredient that emanated a strong fragrance with just a sprinkle of salt and a brief grilling. Cut into bite-sized pieces and artfully plated, the dish suddenly seemed three times more delicious than anything at the night market, truly showcasing the skill of Beijing’s renowned chefs.

After several courses, with something in his stomach, Jiang Yuan sipped the tea paired with the meal and asked, "Captain Liu, is it convenient to discuss the case here?"

"Shall we not rest and start again tomorrow?" Liu Cheng asked with a smile.

"Having traveled this far for business, the sooner we finish, the sooner it’s over."

"Alright, with Ningtai Jiang Yuan on the case, there’ll be no issues," Liu Cheng complimented once more, then became serious, choosing his words carefully, "The physical evidence in the blood-stained clothes case primarily consists of the clothes from that day, and most importantly, the two pieces of blood-stained clothing. In the early stages of the investigation, we tracked the brand and sales channels of the clothes, but they had a high sales volume, including in Beijing, so we couldn’t connect them to any suspects."

Liu Cheng paused before continuing, "We’ve also done DNA comparisons with the other clothes found in the same donation box. The box was placed under an apartment building, which isn’t isolated in a complex manner and is connected to office buildings, so the identity of the person who donated the clothes remains uncertain. What we do know now is that the blood and the sweat on the clothes belong to females, but to two different individuals."

Jiang Yuan slightly nodded, "This means that both the murderer and the victim are most likely female."

"Yes," Liu Cheng nodded gravely, "This is where the case has hit a wall. The main issue is that we can’t find the body, so we have no idea how the murderer disposed of it or why she left behind only the blood-stained clothes."

He left the question open-ended, sparking interest among the detectives present.

Wang Chuanxing put down his chopsticks and suggested, "It’s possible that she buried the body, perhaps in a park nearby. She couldn’t bury her blood-stained clothes with the body, nor could she just dispose of them carelessly. A woman doesn’t have the strength to dig a second hole; upon seeing the donation box, she might have stuffed them there?"

"Then why didn’t she just throw them in the trash?" Tang Jia questioned after listening to his reasoning, "Moreover, the clothes appeared to have been roughly washed. Cutting them up and throwing them away would be safer than putting them in a donation box."

"Burning them would be even safer," Wang Chuanxing said.

"Burning clothes would create thick smoke, and they wouldn’t burn completely, especially denim and synthetic fabrics," Tang Jia seriously pointed out.

"The body was probably dismembered," Mu Zhiyang suddenly interjected, "Otherwise, it would be difficult to move a body weighing over 100 pounds."

He had actual experience with carrying bodies and knew the weight involved.

Jiang Yuan couldn’t help but nod; Mu Zhiyang had worked with him on many cases, and his judgement was usually quite sound. While violent killings could result in blood-stained clothing, the likelihood of dismemberment was higher because it was a female murderer.

After all, with a large body lying there, immovable and unwanted by the police, how would one deal with it?

At this point, many criminals would choose to dismember the body to evade the law’s punishment.

But dismemberment is actually very challenging. Not to mention the difficulty of the task akin to a butcher disassembling an ox, even an ordinary person who has purchased half a pig or a lamb would understand some of the difficulty when trying to fit it into a fridge.

The larger volume of a human body means the challenge of disassembling it would only be greater. Getting covered in blood in the process would be more than normal.

Seeing Jiang Yuan’s serious face, Liu Cheng’s emotions unexpectedly relaxed a little, and he said, "The case has stalled here due to some rather illogical issues... "

"No worries, we’ll let the evidence speak for itself tomorrow," Jiang Yuan responded, his expression still grave, but without a trace of hesitation or worry.

Liu Cheng’s mood immediately tensed up again; this feeling was so familiar...