National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 741 - 684: Forbidden Spell

Chapter 741: Chapter 684: Forbidden Spell

Jasmine, Bougainvillea, Gardenia, Hibiscus, Lotus...

As Jiang Yuan identified more and more types of pollen, even the criminal police, who knew nothing about legal botany, were greatly encouraged.

Although they were mostly common plants, locations that fully meet the requirements of these pollens were definitely few, and might even be unique.

Jiang Yuan had no doubt about this either. While the victim might frequent multiple locations, the pollen he carried was regionally and proportionally distinct. This was the most critical point of a pollen profile.

In addition, sunflower pollen was extremely unfriendly to the perpetrator.

Insect-pollinated pollen is a favorite among legal botanists, which means that, globally, at least hundreds of people are very fond of them.

Insect-pollinated pollen is typically much thicker, as it does not need to disperse with the wind like wind-pollinated pollen, and to bees, insects, or hummingbirds, the thickness of pollen hardly makes a perceptible difference in weight.

But for pollen, a thicker wall means better preservation conditions and vastly different resistance to external environments. Therefore, the sunflower pollen Jiang Yuan saw was shaped like a space fortress, and its defensive power in the world of pollen was about on that level.

Sunflower pollen of this caliber was naturally larger and more likely to stick to people’s clothes, and thus, it was also easier to identify.

Even a novice legal botanist at level 1 could not possibly miss such large sunflower pollen.

However, the identification of the Asteraceae family is a truly cruel task for botany students, akin to the difficulty of cutting cowpea seeds. To confirm it was sunflower pollen would probably require a herculean effort.

Jiang Yuan didn’t stop there.

This time, he found a specific taxonomic guide and meticulously classified the sunflower pollen he found, ultimately concluding that the pollen belonged to an edible variety: Sunflower ’Sukei No.2’.

Only after doing all this did Jiang Yuan let go of the microscope, rubbing his neck, he wrote a simple appraisal report, and handed it over to Tao Lu.

In fact, it had taken just over a day, but for Tao Lu and the others, the clues obtained in this one day were more than those obtained in the previous month.

Most importantly, after the previous "training" in searching for pollen sources, everyone had already gained considerable insight.

"’Sukei No.2,’ does that mean the edible type of sunflower we usually grow? The kind planted by farmers?" Tao Lu, after reading the appraisal report, handed it to Liu Cheng.

Jiang Yuan nodded and said, "Yes, sunflowers can be divided into several broad categories. Commonly seen ones, like the cut-flower type sunflowers sold in flower shops, have longer stems and flower quickly, some with longer blooming periods. There are also ornamental sunflowers, potted sunflowers, the edible type we’ve found, and even oil-producing types."

Cui Qishan, who was next to them, felt it was complicated and said while scratching his head, "I thought the pollen detected this time would be from the cut-flower type sunflowers sold in flower shops, right? Can they really be differentiated just by the pollen?"

"Many varieties of the cut-flower type sunflowers don’t have pollen, like ’Red Mill’ and ’Chianti Red Wine.’ Some well-known varieties have different colored pollens, like ’Black Oil’—you can tell by the name, the middle pollen is black," Jiang Yuan explained, some of which he had researched on the spot, as new plant varieties were constantly emerging with some undergoing changes in their pollen, while others didn’t change or changed very little, all requiring real-time comparison.

Cui Qishan and the others, still confused, nodded their heads, unaware that Jiang Yuan had just silently cast a prohibited spell.

Even though new varieties of sunflower pollen have records and descriptions, there are no images. In fact, most pollen only has descriptions and not images.

To capture an image of a grain of pollen, it is necessary to coat the pollen with gold foil under a scanning electron microscope and then place it in a vacuum to accurately photograph. This is why some plants have images of their pollen, but most do not.

One of the reasons why research on pollen in Legal Botany or botany in general has always been lagging is that you may think botany is about memory, like a liberal arts subject, but in fact, botany also demands your spatial imagination, as well as the ability to analyze, abstract, summarize, and synthesize—purely scientific.

It was with the aid of his LV4 skills in Legal Botany and a temporarily unlocked +1 skill that Jiang Yuan was able to correctly identify the type of sunflower pollen.

Cui Qishan and others, looking at the identification report, thought that this was just how Legal Botany worked.

Jiang Yuan didn’t bother to elaborate on this part, simply saying, "Although Su Kui No. 2 is an edible type of sunflower, according to its pollen atlas, jasmine, bougainvillea, gardenia, hibiscus, lotus, and so on, are all common ornamental plants. The victim likely fell to the ground in some garden, yard, or park-like place and was subsequently contaminated with these pollens. It’s unlikely that it happened in a pure agricultural field."

"If we’re looking across the entire city for a place that has planted a dozen varieties of flowers, the scope is still a bit too large," Tao Lu said as he looked down and pondered.

The reason he said ’across the entire city’ was because carrying a corpse into or out of Beijing was extremely risky—checkpoints in between were much stricter than ordinary toll stations, many places also had police dogs to assist, and any criminal weighing the pros and cons would know that dumping a body in Beijing was downright insane.

Furthermore, Victim No. 3 himself mainly kept company in Beijing and had no record of leaving the city; it was likely a case of murder and body disposal within Beijing itself.

But as Tao Lu said, despite this, the area of Beijing was still too large.

At that moment, Jiang Yuan said, "I think we can continue to trace the sunflower. Although Su Kui No. 2 is a relatively common edible type of sunflower, its main planting areas are in the northwest and Inner Mongolia. There is also some in Beijing, but the quantities are very small. Therefore, within the scope of Beijing, there definitely aren’t many people who have sold and purchased seeds of Su Kui No. 2..."

Actually, Tao Lu was already excited before Jiang Yuan finished speaking.

"We have experience with this, tracking the origin of seeds... right, including the sales records online, there shouldn’t be many. If it’s planted in a garden, then only a small quantity of seeds will be purchased, or maybe it’s given by someone. Either way, there’s a source. Once we find the source, we can find out where the sunflowers were planted." Tao Lu stood up, feeling that they were getting close to a breakthrough in the case.

"It’s also possible that the seeds were left by the killer himself," Cui Qishan said.

"The average person isn’t that idle," Tao Lu said, looking at Cui Qishan, "I mean, saving seeds is somewhat difficult... Let’s look back 5 years and see who purchased these sunflower seeds. If we can find the original crime scene, there might be hope for this case!"

"That’s true too," Cui Qishan chuckled twice, then suddenly had an epiphany, and looked at Jiang Yuan, saying, "What about these pollens, like the lotus ones, can we also determine a specific species?"

Jiang Yuan responded with a smile, "Lotus is a perennial and survives year after year. However, I will take a look at other species of flowers."

Even if he had to investigate, Jiang Yuan would need his temporarily unlocked +1 skill to cool down before he could continue the search.

By this time, Tao Lu and the others were already too preoccupied to care about this.

While verifying the source of the sunflower seeds, they eagerly rushed to the scene, checking each farm household one by one.

Despite a daunting list of hundreds of names, for Zhengguang Bureau, this was just routine investigation!