National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 870 - 808: Sheep’s Foot

Dog market.

A group of adorable cats were puffing their chests and waving their tails to greet customers, trying to sell themselves for a good price.

The turtles poked their heads out and mildly observed their surroundings, before stacking upon each other to bask in the sun.

Fluffy and cute rabbits, large and small, white and gray, they all seemed arrogantly poised, carrying their chins high like little lords, occasionally scratching their cages with their paws.

Mu Zhiyang led the way, a swing stick tucked in his waist, not carrying many extra items.

Jiang Yuan and Liu Jinghui followed some distance behind, talking as they walked, much like any men might while shopping.

Their trip at most could be considered investigative visits, and if there were any mandatory requirements, it was merely to cover all the shops that sold knives.

This wasn’t a difficult task at all. Experienced criminal police officers could quickly visit all markets by simply asking a few vendors in the same line of business, who often had a better understanding of the market than the customers themselves. They could even detail where their competitors got their goods and the prices they paid.

Domestic markets had long been competitive, and factories were also fiercely contending. Any "information gap" in wholesale markets that could last a week was impressive.

Of course, some gray and black market items like fake cigarettes, fake alcohol, fake feed, sick dogs, and others were sold secretly, but they could be easily found if one knew the right people.

The machetes involved in this case did not fall within this category. Given the current domestic prices of industrial products, even those wanting to make dirty money wouldn’t sell such poor-quality machetes.

Instead, it was the publicly sold, high-volume goods that could potentially be paired with counterfeit products.

"These don’t meet the standards," Jiang Yuan stated in a shop that also sold alfalfa, after examining their sickles and machetes, quickly dismissing the possibility.

Mu Zhiyang was undeterred, simply saying, "Then let’s continue to C16."

The group hadn’t walked far when they heard a ruckus brewing up ahead.

Mu Zhiyang immediately yanked out his swing stick, while Tang Jia behind him took out her walkie-talkie.

Jiang Yuan’s group totaled only seven people. Other members of the Cold Case Squad were either at the livestock market, wandering around shops outside the market, or had gone to the warehouse area behind the market. There, channels were also available for industry insiders to source and purchase goods.

After making thorough preparations, they proceeded forward and soon came across two people arguing over an alpaca.

"Don’t go, I’m calling the police, wait here," a slender man clung to the alpaca, dialing 110 on his phone.

The man holding the leash looked much sturdier and, annoyed, pushed the other away, saying, "Just because you say it’s yours it’s yours? With so many pets in this market, you just had to pick the most expensive, and I have to give it to you?"

"How many people in Qinghe own alpacas? Mine went missing, and you just happen to bring one here to sell? Don’t leave, I’ve called the police, let’s wait for them to arrive."

"I don’t care to talk to you. I have important things to do, instead of staying here and helping you find your sheep?"

"This is my alpaca, I recognize it."

"Then you call it, see if it listens to you?"

The man hugging the alpaca immediately shouted, "Yellow Hair, Yellow Hair..."

The alpaca turned around and spat saliva onto his face.

"Yellow Hair, you rascal!" the man hugging the alpaca said with a doting expression, looking up, "See, isn’t it responding to me?"

"Are you crazy?" the man holding the leash tugged at it, "An alpaca spitting at you means it dislikes you."

"If it didn’t recognize me, how could it dislike me?" The slender man kept holding the alpaca firmly, the gathering crowd around them grew larger by the minute, and they too started to speculate.

Jiang Yuan and the others walked over as well.

Liu Jinghui stared at the two men and then turned to ask Jiang Yuan, "Who do you think is lying?"

"No need to guess, just look at the feet," Jiang Yuan replied and then said to Wang Chuanxing, "Go ask Skinny for the photos, and ask him for the photos of the alpaca’s footprints."

Liu Jinghui was surprised, "You can read alpaca’s feet?"

"Footprints, there are commonalities," Jiang Yuan explained casually. The skills he had gained were unreasonable, and now that he had upgraded to Level 5 Footprint Analysis, he wasn’t picky about which footprints, whether they were human, cattle, sheep, horses, alpacas could naturally be included.

Although Liu Jinghui possessed high-order reasoning skills, he was taken aback by Jiang Yuan’s irrational abilities and didn’t know how to make sense of them.

Wang Chuanxing stepped forward, showed his identification, and then said to the thin man holding the alpaca, "You have photos of your pet, right? Show me."

The man with the alpaca quickly opened his mobile phone’s photo gallery and showed Wang Chuanxing the photos of him with the alpaca.

The man holding the leash also came over, frowned as he looked at Wang Chuanxing’s identification, then looked at the photos on the other phone and suddenly laughed, "Your alpaca doesn’t look the same at all."

The alpaca in the photos was spirited and had lustrous white fur all over, while the alpaca in front of them had patches of greyish-yellow fur.

The slim man said, "Before it went missing, I always groomed it, dyed it, but you can tell they are the same from the face..."

Jiang Yuan waved his hand to stop the argument and simply said, "The footprints."

Wang Chuanxing rummaged with the slim man for a while and finally found an outdoor photo with footprints.

Jiang Yuan took the phone and looked at it, then looked at the footprints left by the alpaca on the spot, and after a few seconds, he said, "It’s the same one."

Before the slim man could rejoice, the man holding the leash immediately took offense and shouted, jumping three feet high, "You say it is and it is?"

He brandished the leash and said, "You think you can identify an alpaca by its feet? What kind of international joke is this? Look at my feet, do you know my name?"

"I can issue a forensic report later," Jiang Yuan muttered, while Mu Zhiyang and another police officer had quietly circled around from behind.

The man holding the leash still did not understand what was going on and was still shouting, "Ladies and gentlemen, give me a fair hearing, can it be so hasty? Just by looking at a photo, they say my alpaca is his? What’s the reason for this? This can’t just go unnoticed, I’m telling you!"

"Of course it can’t just go unnoticed. The value of the alpaca is definitely over 5,000," Jiang Yuan spoke as the police officers were already grabbing the leash man’s arms.

"50,000. I have the invoice." The man holding the alpaca trembled with excitement.

Mu Zhiyang promptly took out handcuffs and locked the leash man’s wrists, saying, "We now suspect you of theft or fencing and are taking you back to the police station for investigation."

The cold handcuffs had a special kind of magic. Most police officers had similar experiences; when you handcuff someone, there’s a fifty percent chance that they will suddenly become calm and shut up.

Many arrogant suspects would stiffen the moment they were locked up. freёwebnoѵel.com

Mu Zhiyang straightened the leash man out and handed him over to others, saying, "You think the police are playing with you? Go back and confess your issues, strive to serve your sentence and return home."

The leash man was led away with a blank stare in his eyes, took several steps before shouting, "I found it, I found it, is that not enough?"

"You mean, this alpaca isn’t actually yours?" The police officer leading him wasn’t going to play along with his story. Once they were in the interrogation room later, if he still wanted to maintain this claim, he’d have to explain the specific location and time when he found the alpaca. Even without surveillance, they could deduce the possibilities through the timing.

However, even if the alpaca was found, it still constituted the crime of misappropriation under Article 270 of the Criminal Law, which is legally occupying lost or buried items of others, with significant value, refusing to hand it over, resulting in up to two years’ imprisonment, detention or a fine, and with extremely large amounts or other serious circumstances, two to five years’ imprisonment and a fine.

The condition for this "non-acquisition of lost property" clause is "significant amount, refusal to hand over," so generally, even finding an Apple phone would be difficult to prosecute, but an alpaca with an invoice of 50,000 yuan qualifies for a case.

"Do you really recognize the alpaca’s footprint?" Liu Jinghui looked at Jiang Yuan incredulously, unsure whether he really recognized it or had bluffed the other party.

"I recognize them," Jiang Yuan sincerely said.

Liu Jinghui looked back at the alpaca’s feet, the alpaca looked at its own feet, then was led onto a pickup truck, as it was now evidence.

"We should find more cases where the culprit slips up," Liu Jinghui thought for a long time, finally coming up with a homophonic pun.