National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 835 - 776: Tracing Back

Chapter 835: Chapter 776: Tracing Back

Gaga gaga...

"What’s this noise?" When Cui Qishan arrived at the scene, he could hear a scratching sound inside, like a bamboo rat having its meal.

"The one defecating is scratching the door with his fingernails." Xiao Si was standing at the restroom entrance, not entering and said, "Everyone else has gone to chase the runaway, I’m alone watching the front desk, and also watching him; he doesn’t listen when I call out."

Cui Qishan glanced at the girl who had been ordered to sit across, looking wronged and a bit scared, resembling a car model, then glared at Xiao Si, "You’ve handcuffed her, couldn’t you just go in and deal with it?"

"Ah... I was thinking... she didn’t seem to pose an immediate threat." Xiao Si gave the girl a friendly smile.

The girl’s smile was one of panic and disarray.

"Take her away, take her away." Cui Qishan specifically called over a policewoman, "Listen to your logic. If she’s not a threat, then what’s that scratching sound all about?"

While speaking, Cui Qishan gestured forward and said, "Go pull that person out; I haven’t seen such a noisy suspect in a while."

Two criminal police stepped forward and loudly commanded, "Police! We are now ordering you to open the door, put your hands up, and stand at the farthest point from the door."

The sound of a hand scratching a wooden door in the restroom compartment suddenly ceased.

"I just came in to use the restroom," said a weak male voice from inside the door.

The criminal police at the door nearly laughed, "No matter what you came for, you follow commands, understand?"

"I’m not from this company..."

"You’re not from this company, even better, if you’re not an employee of this company, just obey and come out clearly, and we will let you go back, understand?" The criminal police’s attitude seemed very accommodating, just like typical players, before achieving their goals, they satisfy the emotional needs of others as fully as possible, the language predominantly sugar-coated, irrespective of truth.

The man behind the door cowered for a while and still engaged in verbal defiance.

Cui Qishan signaled with his eyes, and a strongly-built criminal police wobbled his head, carrying a shield, stood two meters apart, gestured, and fiercely kicked.

Crack.

The wooden door was kicked open.

The person inside, speaking, let out a scream of fright and started throwing strange things.

"Shit!"

Even the criminal police suddenly became scared.

Pap pap!

Two moderately sized, pointed stools were thrown out, causing splatter damage.

Compared to the negligible physical damage, the sudden psychological damage was strikingly heart-wrenching.

Xiao Si silently moved forward and locked the restroom’s main door.

Inside the restroom, just as Cui Qishan was about to turn and run, he got stuck at the door.

"Open the door!" Cui Qishan was absolutely frantic!

Through the door, Xiao Si faintly said, "Captain Cui, if I open the door now, can you stop the suspect? If you can’t, and he gets out, it’s easy for him to damage the antiques in this work area or jump out of a window to escape."

Cui Qishan looked back and saw a man in a suit, holding shit, smiling maniacally.

Honestly, Cui Qishan had dealt with a man ready to commit suicide with explosives, and even he hadn’t smiled so terrifyingly.

Considering the distance between the two, Cui Qishan couldn’t just shake him off without consequence.

Just the time taken to open the door would be enough for the other to pounce.

Cui Qishan sighed. Xiao Si’s eerie point also made sense. The suspect was clearly struggling; letting him out and then him jumping off a building would be troublesome.

With that thought, Cui Qishan could only turn around, cover his face with his hand, and shouted, "Catch him!"

As the squad leader stood in front absorbing the brunt, the other three criminal police saw and also lunged.

The suspect laughed wildly, half a laugh, dug into his hands, and smeared the last bits of shit on his own front chest, shoulders, wrists, and cheeks.

This move further intimidated the three criminal police.

Seizing the moment, the suspect roared and charged directly at Cui Qishan.

What could Cui Qishan do but step aside to dodge the assault, then use his left hand to block the shit on the suspect’s right shoulder, his right hand to block the shit on the left chest, twist both hands, and slam the person heavily against the wall.

"Seven-Injury Fist, huh." Cui Qishan looked at the two policemen, one hand and body covered in shit, pressing the suspect beneath him, then looked down at himself, nearly crying from the stimulation.

With this kind of strength, why not become a mercenary? What skill is there in playing with shit!

After a brief cleanup, they opened the door and walked out.

The entire office was suffused with a thick smell.

"Everyone clean yourselves up. Take care of the evidence," Xiao Si retreated while holding his nose.

Cui Qishan looked at him, his eyes wider and rounder than the sharp shit.

"What’s your name?" The other three criminal police, while questioning, dragged the suspect to the corner for an improvised interrogation.

At the very least, they needed to understand why this company panicked and ran collectively.

...

Jiang Yuan arrived a bit later; he had first collected samples downstairs, securing the botanical evidence.

On the other hand, it was also because Tao Lu, fearing for his safety, specifically requested it.

Being in a completely unfamiliar company with one suspect hiding in the restroom, potentially seven suspects in the drawers, those who enter first certainly face risks.

Not to mention, until he entered the door, Jiang Yuan felt Tao Lu was making a mountain out of a molehill.

But now, seeing Cui Qishan and the other three criminal police’s conditions, Jiang Yuan thought the brigade commander truly lived up to his name with abundant experience.

"The store sells antique blind boxes," the burly detective reported grimly after conducting a temporary interrogation.

"Antique blind boxes? Can antiques also be sold in blind boxes?" Jiang Yuan asked curiously.

"The main items are low-value cultural playthings, but there are also antiques and jade items, with a high price tag. The cheaper ones cost a few tens of dollars, and the expensive ones are hundreds or thousands of dollars. If someone gets something valuable, they will buy it back..."

Jiang Yuan frowned, "Recycling is illegal, isn’t it?"

"It’s illegal, and moreover, they engage in fraudulent activities. They deliberately send boxes with low-value items to customers who buy frequently..."

Lotteries are allowed, and blind boxes are legal, but if the merchant gives money directly instead of gifts in the lottery, or if the gifts can be exchanged directly for money, then it’s illegal and constitutes the crime of operating a gambling house.

The boundary between legal and illegal lies in whether money can be exchanged.

As for changing the contents of blind boxes, that’s outright fraud.

Xiao Si stepped closer, "So, do they think their scheme has been exposed?"

"Probably."

"And the things we dug up... were they items from two blind boxes?"

"Not exactly," the detective shook his head and said, "I showed them the photos, and they said these items were showcased by their regular performers in live streams before. They got lost previously, and the boss was quite angry about it. They never found them and just let it go."

"They also have live streams?" asked Xiao Si. "Which platform?"

"A small platform. The kind that violates regulations."

Cui Qishan pressed further, "Two bronze Buddhas and two porcelain pieces, worth a lot of money. Do they know how much they are worth?"

"These bastards don’t know. Their boss should understand, though; I heard he got really angry and even sent people to look for them."

"In that case, we must catch the store’s owner," Cui Qishan declared with a stern expression. "Items worth tens of millions of dollars—no one would let it go, especially someone already involved in the underworld, who could potentially commit murder."

...

Interrogation room.

The auction house owner, dressed in a suit, had a contemptuous sneer on his prominently cheekboned face:

"Ten million. I don’t care about that. How could I possibly kill someone over such a trivial amount of money?"

Sitting in front of the interrogation table, Xiao Si suddenly found it amusing and couldn’t help but laugh.

"You don’t believe me?" The auction house owner sat up straight.

"I believe you, but tell us about your cash flow," the interrogator asked nonchalantly, adding just one more question.

The confidence of the auction house owner immediately waned; the answer intended to absolve him of a homicide had become the fuel roasting him.

"Don’t worry, just say it. If you don’t confess properly, your employees and your accountant will, and once you’re heavily sentenced and they lightly, will it be worth it?" the interrogator, experienced in such cases, took it lightly.

The auction house owner sighed with resignation, "It varies. Sometimes, a single live stream can bring in millions in one day, and sometimes there’s no money at all."

"What about the average monthly, or yearly cash flow?"

"A month... maybe tens of millions."

The interrogator knew it wasn’t realistic, but continued to probe, "And the profit?"

"The profit... about half, I guess."

"What are your cost expenditures? What’s the biggest expense?"

"The biggest... that would be labor costs. We have to give everyone a share. Some of our employees earn hundreds of thousands a month..." The owner now desperately shifted the blame.

Meanwhile, watching the large monitoring screens, the botanists each had their expressions difficult to discern.

After three long decades of hard studies, and all the complicated applications for projects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seemed they were better off selling fake antiques.

"You’ll be facing over 10 years. A definite sentence. And the illegal gains will be confiscated; the money made will have to be coughed up. Whatever’s been spent doesn’t count, assets like bought houses and watches will be auctioned off by the justice system," Jiang Yuan offered a comforting remark, sensing the mood.

The faces of the botanists indeed lightened greatly. After earning Ph.D.s and working hard for over a decade, if they didn’t contract cancer, at least they could own a house eventually.

"So how does the case proceed from here? Are we at a dead end again?" Zhao Tian was somewhat displeased.

"The suspect has already been captured," Jiang Yuan spread his hands. "Their shop had surveillance, they knew the name of the person who stole the items, they just couldn’t find him."

"Oh right, could you find him?"

"Our team’s detective flew there last night and coordinated with the Hangzhou City police to arrest the person this morning. The suspect is a repeat offender, a self-media photographer earning thirty to forty thousand a month, living in his girlfriend’s house; his girlfriend is a pretty livestreamer who even bought him a Rolex and LV clothes..."

The botanists were silenced once again.

"Let’s go. Let’s head back." Zhao Tian gestured, and the botanists filed out of the monitoring room.

Jiang Yuan followed them out and then saw Zhan Kan excitedly waving.

"What’s up?" Jiang Yuan walked over to ask.

"That Skull Restoration Skill, I’ve completed it!" Zhan Kan showed Jiang Yuan a photo on his phone.

"Is this... the skull from the previous case?" Jiang Yuan took a while to confirm. Indeed, Zhan Kan had completed the Skull Restoration Skill of the deceased from Qi Changye’s special case.

Considering the time, that was pretty fast.

Jiang Yuan looked closely and nodded, "Well done... ah, but there’s some room for adjustments, like here..."

Zhan Kan immediately pulled out his notebook, listening intently.

At some point, the system screen popped up in front of Jiang Yuan:

Task complete: Mentorship

Task details: Zhan Kan has followed for 48 hours and is now trained in the Skull Restoration Skill to reach Level 1.

Task reward: Handgun Shooting (Level 3)