National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 810 - 752 Live Effect_2

Chapter 810: Chapter 752 Live Effect_2

He did have a need for the botanists. Solving cases with legal botany sounded simple, but just searching for spores under the microscope could blind a person. But getting botanists to join him in solving cases wasn’t easy without Qi Changye’s influence—relying solely on Jiang Yuan himself was problematic.

As with the botanists from Baijiang Province, they’d come together mainly out of respect for Pang Jidong.

Otherwise, why would these scholars, either university professors or senior researchers from research institutions, averaging above their forties and fifties, spend days, or even longer, helping Jiang Yuan?

Not to mention everyone had their own career paths, academic goals, and work schedules. Even Jiang Yuan’s status and age made it difficult for him to unite such a group of people.

Last time, Jiang Yuan managed to handle things with image enhancement techniques and LV4 legal botany, but this time there were more scholars to deal with, all from Beijing, and it was hard to tell what kind of trouble they might stir up.

If the discussion deviated from legal botany into pure botany—Jiang Yuan could certainly avoid the topic, but that would definitely be less effective in rallying support.

After careful consideration, Jiang Yuan decided to coordinate efforts online and offline. His advantage wasn’t solely in legal botany techniques.

8:40 AM.

People started to trickle into the meeting room.

Jiang Yuan glanced up but kept busy modifying his PPT, adjusting software, and from time to time checked his WeChat on his phone to ensure everything was in place.

Qi Changye was furiously typing in the group chat while making incessant phone calls offline.

Online-offline coordination hinged on human factors, and secondly, ensuring real-time operation of various software.

Setting software issues aside, the human factor was constantly in flux.

For instance, until today, Jiang Yuan had no idea how many people Qi Changye could bring. Qi Changye himself wasn’t sure, so adjustments had to be made according to the situation on the ground.

Believing everyone would cooperate was naively optimistic.

Even as a celebrity detective, Jiang Yuan couldn’t sway a group of men in their thirties and forties, who might strip down for a star early in the morning in the wilderness, but wouldn’t necessarily scooch over for one.

After confirming with each team, the 9 AM alarm rang.

With a press, Jiang Yuan silenced the alarm, lifted his head, turned on the microphone, and said, "Let’s begin."

All fifty seats below were filled.

In addition to the over twenty Beijing botanists invited by Qi Changye, there was Pang Jidong and his four Baijiang Province botanists, numerous students, and several police officers of various ranks.

Looking over the room, Jiang Yuan could see expectation on the faces of the police officers; among the botanists, only Sulei and Qiao Shengli wore encouraging expressions.

Jiang Yuan smiled, opened the PPT, and said, "First, I’d like to thank everyone for taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in this case. Criminal cases are unique, and there are some guidelines below for everyone to read."

After displaying the instructions page, Jiang Yuan paused for half a minute before continuing, "Today’s introduction will focus on two parts: one is the practice of legal botany, mainly discussing how we use it to serve criminal cases. The second part involves some actual practice work with the help of our police colleagues."

As Jiang Yuan spoke, the botanists took it as a simple description, but the police officers in the audience were already excited.

The officers were deeply impressed with Jiang Yuan and took his mention of "actual practice work" quite literally, unlike the attending botanists who perceived it as merely a degree of description.

Jiang Yuan moved to another slide in the PPT and said, "Alright, let’s watch this video. This is plot K67, its labeling method and range can be seen by scanning the QR code on the map; first, let’s discuss this plot... Actually, I already went over this video last night, and I thought there were problems here..."

Jiang Yuan enlarged the image to highlight a cluster of bushes.

The botanists in the room straightened up, studied the image intently, and some, like the students, began taking pictures to record their observations.

"This is birch, elm, also Scots pine, and ferns..."

"It’s really abnormal for the wild environment to grow like this."

"Judging by the tree ages, they’ve only been here for a few years, no more than ten; this place is definitely problematic."

Jiang Yuan waited half a minute before adding, "In legal botany, this is a typical case we call the Seed Bank. I’ll explain for the non-professionals present. A Seed Bank refers to the soil that contains all the nearby plant seeds, and above ground, after a long period of competition, the vegetation had become stable. But once the soil in an area is disturbed, the germinating new plants initiate a new ecology, a new competition."

"So this place was disturbed a few years ago, someone dug up the ground to bury a body? In the wilderness, digging up several square meters of ground is indeed not normal," a scholar in front said immediately.

This is what happens in meetings with scholars; those confident enough to have made it this far could extend the discussion far beyond scale at a small meeting like this when problems arose.

"Some animals have a habit of digging, don’t they?" a young student inquired softly.

"Just digging alone would allow the surrounding plants to invade immediately, giving no chance for the seeds in the Seed Bank to grow," replied a scholar, without needing Jiang Yuan to chime in: "Only in a case like a buried body, with the corrosive fluid produced by decomposition, would you prevent the invasion of nearby plants, allowing new seeds to sprout."

"So you’re saying, under such a plot, there must be a body?" the student inquired with surprise: "Is it that easy to find?"

"It’s not that easy because we start from a large map." Jiang Yuan continued to shrink the map he had expanded.

As the detailed plot reverted to an ordinary looking map, the young people in the room grew quiet.

Given a national map, identifying places where bodies were secretly buried—this was their understanding of legal botany.

"Let’s discuss another plot while the police check this area, and then we can talk about the search process for bodies," Jiang Yuan said, dealing out practical information because he still needed the help of these botanists for the search.

For the botanists, today’s event had just taken an exciting turn.

They began to grasp the real meaning of "actual," peppering questions:

"Are we digging up a body on site?"

"What do we do if we find one?"

"Can we find it? If something’s dug up, does that mean it’s a murder case?"

Even some were already eagerly sharing with others, botanist chats and social media were buzzing with unprecedented fervor and attention.