National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 725 - 668: Beckoning the Willows

Chapter 725: Chapter 668: Beckoning the Willows

Restaurant.

Mu Zhiyang stood by the dining table, stirring the congee in the clay pot with a ladle. Once he felt it was well-mixed, he ladled out a bowl.

The first bowl was for Huang Qiangmin, followed by Jiang Yuan and Wei Zhenguo, among others.

Huang Qiangmin slurped a mouthful and nodded, saying, "The Cantonese cuisine in Beijing is really good, much tastier than what we have in Shan Nan—authentic."

"When you’re out and about and don’t know what to eat, you either go for beef noodles or Cantonese food," Wei Zhenguo summarized his experience, his dark, wrinkled face seemed to spell out deep-seated bitterness.

"That’s quite a price gap you’ve got there," quipped Huang Qiangmin with a smile. He brought the conversation back on track, saying, "So, does that mean the parallel special task force set up by Tao Lu has fallen through without any illness?"

"It seems so," Wei Zhenguo, who had been observing the operations within Zhengguang Bureau these past two days, nodded with a hint of emotion and said, "The task force set up by Tao Lu, led by Cui Qishan—calling him a troublemaker would be an understatement. With no breakthroughs in the case, the situation became muddled under his watch, even more so than this pot of congee."

Huang Qiangmin, who was eating the congee, looked at Mu Zhiyang stirring the pot and involuntarily both paused in their actions.

"The previous two cases were already solved, avenging the four corpses. And with this case, there are another four corpses. So as of now, Zhengguang Bureau has reached a critical point," Huang Qiangmin pushed aside the stirred congee, put down his chopsticks, and said earnestly, "To my mind, I’m afraid this case involves more than just these four corpses."

"Quite likely. The four corpses were well buried, with high concealment and depth of about half a meter. If it weren’t for Cui Qishan finding the spot and sending cadaver dogs to search, they wouldn’t have been discovered for years," Jiang Yuan paused, then added, "Judging by the burial technique, this doesn’t seem like the first time."

If one hadn’t received relevant training, the first murder would usually be sloppy, as would the burial. The placement of three bodies together and another one buried separately seemed somewhat nonchalantly skilled from Jiang Yuan’s perspective.

The depth wasn’t particularly deep, but sufficient; the size of the grave was appropriate. Squeezing three bodies in was a bit of a tight fit, but the victims certainly couldn’t argue, and the perpetrator had saved some effort.

For most novices, the grave would either be too shallow, less than half a meter, leading to untrained stray dogs or wild animals dragging the bodies out, which wasn’t uncommon. Or, lacking practical experience, guided only by books, they would insist on digging the grave to a depth of one and a half meters, nearly working themselves to death.

As the saying goes, "With no son, dig three feet nine; with one son, dig four feet two; with many sons, four feet seven." Families with few sons dared not dig graves too deep, as it gets harder the deeper you go. For a murderer to dig a grave of one and a half meters was just making trouble for themselves.

Upon receiving affirmation, Huang Qiangmin’s smile gradually widened from 33.3 degrees to 44.4 degrees and said, "That’ll work. I’ll take this as a basis and have a talk with Tao Lu."

Jiang Yuan nodded. He couldn’t say for sure how many corpses this case would involve, and he couldn’t even be certain if more would be discovered. But from what he had seen, if the person were caught, there would definitely be more corpses unearthed.

"It’s just that the case might not be solved," Jiang Yuan reminded Huang Qiangmin.

The difficulty of the case was obvious. Even now that the bodies had been found, there wasn’t much useful information gleaned from them.

Even if it hadn’t been for his use of several skill sets to identify the third victim’s identity, determining the identity of the three naked corpses might have been a long process, and they may have even remained unfound. There were many unidentified bodies in the morgues that had been unclaimed for years.

Not every corpse’s origin could be traced—that was the basic rule in the world of forensic science.

Huang Qiangmin was even more aware of the difficulty of the case than Jiang Yuan, but he had more faith in Jiang Yuan, offering him reassurance, "Since you say so, it shows the case is quite challenging, but I believe no big case can stand in your way with your abilities."

The detectives at the table envied him openly. Although Huang Qiangmin was usually stern, everyone respected him for his conduct and affairs. Now, with such unabashed admiration for Jiang Yuan from Huang Qiangmin, it was like everyone’s dream when they joined the police force.

Jiang Yuan achieved it easily.

Ding.

A light blue interface popped up in front of Jiang Yuan:

Mission: Return Home

Mission details: The murderer uses social networking software to commit murder, plunging many families into grief and confusion. Find the victims’ bodies, confirm their origins, and bring the murderer to justice.

Mission reward: "Skull Restoration Skill" technical level +1

Jiang Yuan silently read through the mission and couldn’t help but put down his chopsticks.

Everyone naturally turned their attention to him.

Jiang Yuan thought for a moment, then said, "Since that’s the case, let’s negotiate with the Zhengguang Bureau on the basis that we can solve this case."

"Great! That’s the spirit we need." Huang Qiangmin suddenly felt confident, as if he had also accepted a mission, saying, "This will make things easier. Just for this case alone, the Zhengguang Bureau is willing to make concessions. By the way, what do you need on your end?"

"I’ll ask Director Liu to come over." Jiang Yuan saw the system task pop up and naturally treated it as a major challenge.

The investigative process is often damaging, just like when scene-of-crime officers enter the site. No matter how carefully they try to preserve it, the site will inevitably be compromised to some extent by the investigators. Activities such as sampling further result in the unavoidable destruction of evidence.

The criminal investigation process is similar. After a witness is questioned, parts of their memory may be reinforced, while other details may become vague. The interrogation of criminal suspects and the changes at the scene also evolve over time.

Therefore, the best staff should be the first to enter the scene, rather than waiting until the scene is compromised before elevating its importance.

The evidence Jiang Yuan could find at the moment consisted of four skeletons that had just been unearthed and two crime scenes. A lot of information was obtained, but not much of it was useful. Jiang Yuan felt that he really needed Liu Jinghui’s boundless imaginative deductions.

Sometimes, when there is no clear direction, randomly guessing one is not a bad idea.

Huang Qiangmin nodded in agreement: "Then there’s the issue with the press. The Zhengguang Bureau agrees on this—if you don’t want to do interviews, that’s fine, but always be careful not to be caught on video, otherwise it could turn into trouble."

Mu Zhiyang muttered, "They’re of no help at all, only causing trouble."

"It’s not much of a problem. Having fame within the system makes future work easier," Huang Qiangmin tried to put a positive spin on it, smiling, "Like in the past, we didn’t have the internet or search engines. When we went to another place to handle a case, we had to either force our way through, or it was best to have a friend there. The most comfortable is being a well-known detective; wherever you go, a bunch of people are eager to help out. If you need to arrest someone, the local police will cooperate wholeheartedly..."

Mu Zhiyang became curious: "What about now?"

"The basic situation hasn’t changed. Like your special team now going to different places in Shan Nan, don’t you feel it’s been a lot easier?"

"I thought it was because we are the creditors." Mu Zhiyang renewed his thinking once more.

Huang Qiangmin laughed: "That’s related as well."

...

Liu Jinghui took the evening flight the following day and arrived in Beijing at night.

The next day he reported to the Criminal Police Brigade at the Zhengguang Bureau, having already studied the case for two days.

Jiang Yuan had also autopsied all four bodies, his four notebooks packed with notes, but still, no conclusive verdict was reached.

"It seems I’ve arrived just in time. I was really worried that by the time I got here, you all would have solved the case," Liu Jinghui said as he entered, causing a group of detectives buried in their files to laugh.

"With Director Liu here, there’s new hope."

"Director Liu has worked hard. Would Director Liu like to say a few words?"

Mu Zhiyang and the others, taking advantage of the crowd, even dared to tease for a while.

Liu Jinghui waved his hand and said, "I don’t have much to say, just here to provide whatever support I can. However, speaking of the case, I think it’s necessary to start by looking at the social networking aspect."

"What do you mean?" Jiang Yuan handed Liu Jinghui a bottle of water as he spoke.

"As far as I know, online hook-ups are actually quite difficult, especially for men seeking women; it’s not easy to arrange. Considering all the talking that’s involved, can’t we extract some information from the content of these conversations?" Liu Jinghui looked behind Jiang Yuan.

Indeed, Wang Chuanxing said, "Cui Qishan’s task force has checked a lot in this regard, but so far, nothing has been found."

"Then look at the chat records between the victims and their friends and confidantes. Some content is quite private and may not be voluntarily disclosed to the police," Liu Jinghui continued with a hint of confidence, "From what I know about women, they are usually willing to share their secrets with close friends, including those about male friends."