National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 939 - 875: The Strongest Combo Move

Shiting County.

The journey is long, the roads are in poor condition, and difficult to travel.

Tangui Village.

Few people, mostly elderly, and tragic deaths— at least, that’s how the villagers describe it.

Jiang Yuan and his team arrived at the crime scene, first detained a group of villagers for a mandatory chat, took down several statements, and then entered the victim’s home.

The village’s small store, originally the information hub of the village, became avoided after someone died. However, the stools and chairs weren’t moved far away; they were just placed on a nearby flat ground to continue sunbathing.

After the chat, Jiang Yuan asked Bai Jian to gather the Shiting County detectives and said, "Today, focus on finding the door support stick. I just discussed with the villagers, the victim Zhao Dong had a door support stick about the width of an iPhone and about 1.5 meters long. Such a long stick is not easy to handle."

"One could just burn it in the village," a police officer immediately suggested. This wasn’t specifically being contrarian; it’s a good time to offer ideas when analyzing the case. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Jiang Yuan nodded, "That implies the murderer is either a villager or a relative of a villager. This case, then, goes back to the pattern of crime by acquaintance."

"So, finding the stick leads to the murderer, and not finding it proves the case involves an acquaintance?" another officer quickly inferred.

A nearby officer rebutted immediately, "What if the murderer drove, and just threw the stick into the car?"

"There weren’t any cars from outside the village parked here for long. If there were, the villagers would likely know."

"It’s hard to say. Moreover, it could be a motorcycle, well-hidden, not necessarily noticed at night."

"A car might also go unnoticed, the old men in the village sleep early, there are no street lights, and temporarily parking a car, even if someone passed by, might not leave an impression."

"Or it could be a two-person or group crime, drive the car away, commit the crime on foot, then come back to pick up others."

"Serial killings by two or more people? Gang crime makes sense, but to kill a middle-aged woman who runs a small store, there’s not much money, and then to skin her face and scalp, it doesn’t add up to that many perverts."

"Indeed, multiple criminals usually indicate revenge or robbery... But from a revenge aspect, could it be she offended someone?"

"Current evidence doesn’t show that, she’s just an ordinary rural woman, her husband is a common laborer, their child goes to a boarding school in the city, her husband only occasionally takes care, it doesn’t seem she offended someone to this extreme degree."

Detectives regularly involved in cases inherently possess deductive abilities at Level 1 or above, significantly stronger than untrained ordinary people.

If regular people are compared to virgins who’ve never dated, detectives regularly handling cases would at least be dating experts; even if the hardware capabilities of the former are superior, the latter totally dominates when faced with the same target.

Experience, after all, is somewhat useful.

Hearing the various inferences, Jiang Yuan also felt there was some rationale.

But still, reasoning needs to be confirmed, especially in this case where only a part of the reasoning has taken place, it doesn’t significantly reduce the workload of investigating the case.

Jiang Yuan followed the evidence trail, "Regardless of how the murderer handled the door support stick, whether discarded, burned, chopped, or taken away, finding the stick, or not finding it, both outcomes are meaningful. The key is to meticulously investigate to ascertain its current status."

"Yes." the newly appointed chief of detectives led the response.

"Bring Dazhuang over as well. Call Shen Yaowei too," Jiang Yuan issued two commands.

This task isn’t easy; Tangui Village covers a large area and the body was only discovered the next day. With the small store as the center, the stick could have been discarded within several kilometers around.

Additionally, Tangui Village has a tradition of burning wood; every household’s front door has thick firewood piles, mostly covered with rainproof or plastic covers. The stick used by the victim, Zhao Dong, is likely chosen from these more uniformly shaped pieces.

That is to say, even if the murderer reinserted the stick back into someone’s firewood pile, the police would still need a thorough search.

But all these aren’t major issues, particularly for such a serious case. Going through garbage dumps to piece together bodies or picking skin out of septic tanks weren’t rare tasks for them.

After delegating peripheral tasks, Jiang Yuan then entered the site area to begin the investigation.

The scene was chaotic, and the police’s intervention later on protected the latter part of the scene well.

The 20-meter wide bungalow features a single story over 100 square meters area as a supermarket, then a large corner connects to a three-story house on the side, enclosing a courtyard in between.

At this point, the single-story supermarket was a mess. Simple shelves had fallen to the ground, various condiments and alcoholic beverages scattered everywhere. Only to see soybean oil mixed in the middle of seafood sauce, soy sauce and garlic paste poured on both sides, sesame paste and vinegar drizzled around, plus bits of peanut crumbles and some unidentified chili, making the floor sticky to walk on.

The entire room was filled with sticky footprints.

"Have all the footprints been collected?" Jiang Yuan turned to ask Bai Jian.

Bai Jian looked towards his own criminal science team leader, Shi Liang.

Shi Liang spread his hands helplessly and said, "We’ve taken photos, but we haven’t gotten around to collecting the actual footprints."

"I’ll allocate four more people to assist you. Start by collecting all other footprints outside the fight scene, including dog paw prints in the yard. Protect the fight scene first, and don’t disturb it," Jiang Yuan instructed without any surprise.

Working in criminal science was supposed to be like this; there was no way to collect every print and trace at the scene as it would overload the lab. At the very least, forensic technicians wouldn’t choose a method that overwhelmed themselves.

However, when a case turns into a major case, all minor protocols become irrelevant. If Jiang Yuan wanted more footprints and fingerprints collected, as long as resources were generous, Shi Liang and the others had no objections. Just do it.

Jiang Yuan didn’t make a fuss, he gestured for people to start laying acrylic bridges.

Soon, a transparent bridge was laid over the main passageways inside the room, allowing everyone to pass over it without further disturbing the crime scene by their inspections.

Forensic experts of Shiting County merely clicked their tongues; they had exhumed graves with Jiang Yuan before, but never used such high-end equipment for an indoor case.

In some ways, high-profile cases serve as benchmarks. Notably, nationally renowned cases depend not only on their uniqueness but significantly on the handling by the responsible police officers and their teams.

Jiang Yuan’s Cold Case Squad moved across multiple provinces not only solving cases but rapidly breaking major ones to high standards.

However, this aspect was only vaguely felt by the officers of Shiting County, not quite palpable.

The current Director Bai kept a close watch on Jiang Yuan, anxiety written all over his face.

Jiang Yuan, walking on the acrylic bridge, entered the corner where the body was found, checked the approximate location against photos, then surveyed the whole area before returning to the chaotic section at the entrance of the small store.

This was where the victim and the murderer had fought.

Logically, it was also where the victim was hit, strangled, and eventually scalped.

Yet, there was not much blood on the ground, footprints overlapped chaotically mixed with various sauces.

Jiang Yuan stood watching for half a minute, then waved to call over Mu Zhiyang, saying, "Get more bridges, elevate it a bit higher."

"Okay," Mu Zhiyang responded promptly, gathered a few more people, lined them in sequence, passing the bridges along and then set up a platform over a meter high.

Jiang Yuan stepped onto the platform as if ascending to a throne, and looked down at the hundreds of layered footprints, falling into deep thought.

Simultaneously, Jiang Yuan’s system interface opened:

"Temporary +1"

"Crime Scene Reconstruction Temporary +1"

Both were activated at once.

This was essentially Jiang Yuan’s strongest combo. Crime Scene Reconstruction is a sub-skill under the Crime Scene Investigation (LV5) skill. Using "Crime Scene Reconstruction Temporary +1" equates to LV6, adding another Temporary +1 leads to LV7.

At LV7 of Crime Scene Reconstruction, with the LV5 Crime Scene Investigation also enhanced to LV6, the effects were corresponding to a set of LV7+LV6 foundational outfit effects. Not only could the chaotic overlapping footprints at the scene be clearly analyzed, but even if it were a mess of buttocks over knees.

Of course, it would still require some time.