National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 704 - 647 Not Exerting Force (Second - )

Chapter 704: Chapter 647 Not Exerting Force (Second Chapter)

Early morning.

Jiang Yuan arrived at the forensic laboratory early in the morning, made himself a cup of tea, tidied up his desk, and then started his day’s work—looking into the microscope.

The bloodstained clothing that served as evidence, had been cut into several pieces, for Jiang Yuan to pick out pollen under the microscope.

Contrary to what many people imagine, when forensic scientists face evidence, their goal is often not to preserve its original state. Common items like bed sheets and pillowcases from crime scenes are roughly cut when testing for blood or luminol, soaked in reagents, and further tested.

Similarly, pieces of paper stained with other substances are treated in the same way.

Some might feel uneasy about this destruction of original states, but from another perspective, many pieces of evidence aren’t collected in their original state to begin with.

For example, a bedsheet that someone has died on doesn’t necessarily need to be packed and returned in its entirety, and it’s even less necessary to pack the entire bedding set. If it’s a technician from the criminal department handling the task, the most normal method is just to cut a piece and take it back.

Whether evidence is missed because of this depends on the crime scene personnel’s abilities. Generally, if there is any doubt, they would pack more items to take back. Otherwise, they would just cut a piece to use as evidence.

Of course, the importance of the case dictates how much gets packed and taken back.

In cases like a small-scale burglary with a low value of stolen goods, you can’t even take more evidence if you want to; even if the evidence room doesn’t complain, the plaintiff wouldn’t want you packing up a truckload of their belongings for a case involving just a few thousand yuan.

Jiang Yuan picked out pollen grain by grain.

There is a great variety in the size of pollen grains—the smallest pollen is only about 4 micrometers long, while the largest can have diameters up to 200 micrometers. In terms of shape, there are many species with spiked spherical pollen, abalone-shaped ones, triangular ones, and so on...

Overall, if it’s just LV1 level forensic botany skills, one can easily categorize the pollen, but technicians with lower levels may encounter many problems when determining the specific species or genus.

In terms of cases, LV1 forensic botany can hardly provide direct clues; at most, it can serve to verify evidence or maybe narrow down the range with single-species pollen.

An LV2 forensic botanist would have significantly enhanced identification capabilities, but would still need to constantly refer to materials for confirmation. Needless to say, in a task that was already very time-consuming, constantly referring to materials means that progress could be frustratingly slow.

By LV3, most pollen no longer requires material consultation, or at least not extensively. In such cases, practicality is greatly enhanced.

Jiang Yuan’s forensic botany skills had now reached LV4, where he could recognize many pollen species at a glance. Moreover, for some common types of pollen, he could even distinguish common ornamental subfamilies. In the eyes of someone knowledgeable, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to utter a word of respect.

As a result, the other forensic doctors from the Beijing Bureau working in the same laboratory noticed that Jiang Yuan kept picking pollen without needing any reference materials, taking notes in a notebook beside him.

A TN brand genuine leather notebook might look like something a clueless office worker would carry, but the forensic doctors in the Beijing Bureau knew a bit about modern cutting-edge technology—after all, the training they received always followed the Bureau’s lead. So, this seemingly unscientific practice made several forensic doctors suspicious.

"It couldn’t be made up, could it?" A forensic doctor’s skepticism started to surface.

Being a detective involves questioning things up to 800 times a day, which is considered on the low end. Faced with Jiang Yuan, whom they weren’t very familiar with, his reputation notwithstanding, doubt was unstoppable. The main investigator in the Hugjiltu case was known as the Mongolian Sherlock Holmes, yet it still ended up a mess.

"Xiao Li, go take a look," a senior forensic doctor in the office thought for a moment and then quietly instructed the younger doctor beside him.

So Xiao Li got up, pretending to be bored, and walked over to Jiang Yuan.

He saw a list of plant names already recorded in Jiang Yuan’s notebook, with several marked by Jiang Yuan with five-pointed stars: daffodil, "Carry Water Mother-In-Law" (Spathiphyllum), ’Tiger’s Claw’ (Episcia)...

Xiao Li couldn’t help but glance over, wondering silently why these were marked.

At that moment, Jiang Yuan looked up from the microscope and caught the gaze of the doctor beside him, as if seeing through his thoughts. He wrote down "hyacinth" in his notebook and marked it with five stars while saying, "Those marked are all toxic plants."

"Ah?" Xiao Li’s exclamation was half because of what Jiang Yuan said, and half because he thought his thoughts had been exposed.

Indeed, Jiang Yuan had guessed his thoughts. Having worked out in the field for more than just a day or two, his more than a year of experience had mostly involved similar scenarios.

Especially the technicians, they tend to be even more skeptical because ordinary people simply don’t understand the depths of technology, assuming that things like fingerprints and DNA results appear automatically. It was different for the technicians; they knew some things were incredibly difficult, like certain math problems that left them completely befuddled, believing someone could solve them, but not that such a person would be right there beside them.

Jiang Yuan’s eyes once again fixed on the microscope, and he said, "The pollen extracted so far is predominantly from domesticated plants, and there are varieties of toxic plant pollen as well. Additionally, there are some vegetable pollens, such as from cucumbers, chili peppers, eggplants, loofahs, pumpkins, and onions... The owner of these clothes must have had an area around them."

In the office, the other forensic doctors’ attention was now drawn.

The most experienced forensic doctor, Guo Xiang, stood up and first asked, "Why wouldn’t it be from somewhere like a vegetable garden?"

"Because there are more indoor plants, the variety of ornamental plants is very complex, and moreover, it should be quite rare for a vegetable garden to intermix toxic plants." Jiang Yuan paused, then continued, "Looking at the overall pollen spectrum, it resembles more the type that plants flowers and vegetables on a balcony; a little bit of lot of different kinds. In vegetable gardens, the types of plants are relatively more uniform."

Jiang Yuan’s statement was deductive reasoning. Guo Xiang did not dwell on it and curiously asked, "What does cucumber pollen look like? May I see it?"

"This one." Jiang Yuan then showed Guo Xiang the sampled cucumber pollen.

Under the microscope, the cucumber pollen was a tender green, slightly elliptical and irregularly circular with densely wrinkled surfaces, along with three grooves of varying shades of yellow. The thickest groove had an even more irregular connection.

Guo Xiang scrutinized it, committing it to memory, then exchanged a few polite remarks before returning to his seat. He then searched the legal botany atlas on the internal network, looking up cucumber directly.

It was indeed an exact match.

Still not fully reassured, Guo Xiang searched for the appearances of the pollen from daffodils and chili peppers as well, memorized them, and then went over to join Jiang Yuan, sitting next to him and observing the sifted pollen through another microscope.

Indeed, it was similar.

Guo Xiang breathed a sigh of relief, but then his suspicion deepened, and he sized up Jiang Yuan from top to bottom, saying, "I just checked, and there are about 250,000 species of angiosperms. You can’t possibly remember every species’ pollen. That’s a bit much to believe."

"How could that be possible," Jiang Yuan laughed.

Guo Xiang also laughed.

Jiang Yuan said, "There’s a pattern."

Guo Xiang’s smile faltered slightly, "250,000 species?"

"Of course, that is not possible. For the uncommon ones, I still need to distinguish their genus before making a judgment," Jiang Yuan stated ambiguously.

For Guo Xiang, Jiang Yuan’s modesty at that moment made him even more inscrutable.

And as a technician who had verified the evidence, all Guo Xiang could do was to trust Jiang Yuan’s judgment.

"So, if we disregard the vegetable garden, are we looking for someone who grows vegetables at home?" Guo Xiang began discussing the specific leads.

Jiang Yuan pondered briefly and said, "Actually, we don’t need to overthink it. Setting the location where the bloodstained clothes were found as the center, how about we first survey the area with a drone? Judging by the types of flowers and vegetables, the contact point for the bloodstained clothes shouldn’t be purely indoors. It has to have sufficient sunlight and a certain area to grow so many different kinds of plants. If it were purely indoors, the lighting would have to be very good."

"That would mean growing vegetables on a balcony or on a rooftop," Guo Xiang concluded.

"It could also be a green space in a residential community, or inside a courtyard house," another forensic doctor added.

Guo Xiang readily nodded, then said, "Could you report this, Captain Jiang? If we’re going to use drones, we still have to consider the surrounding area of the scene. I don’t recall any no-fly zones."

Jiang Yuan knew that Guo was avoiding taking credit for himself, and replied nonchalantly, "You go ahead and call. It’s easier for your team to communicate internally. Besides, leads from legal botany can only be mine; you can’t take them from me."

His candid response left Guo Xiang feeling somewhat helpless.

Without further ado, Guo Xiang pulled out his mobile phone and made the call.

Then he recalled that this was indeed the first piece of good news since the case began.

Guo Xiang glanced back at Jiang Yuan; not even a day and a half had passed, and despite not seeing Jiang Yuan exert much effort, the results seemed quite modest, yet the leads were concrete. And for the detectives in the unit, that was most crucial.