Chapter 148: You really need your own people — when it matters, they actually step up

Working with a leader like this is really comfortable.

How could Yu Dazhang not trust the people from his own branch bureau?

After all, they'd all worked cases together before — they knew each other inside out.

During the last top-tier hospital case, he'd already seen that whether it was Li Jun or Wei Qian, they were both people willing to lead the charge.

And people like that had another quality: they shielded their own and could shoulder responsibility.

A little over an hour later, Yu Dazhang drove to the Hongkou District Funeral Home.

They're quick on the draw... he noticed the funeral home's main gate had already been blocked off by police cars.

Not only that, even the outer wall had uniformed police officers standing guard.

Is this to stop someone from climbing over the wall and escaping?

Yu Dazhang noticed there were quite a few patrol officers from local police stations on scene.

Looks like Li Jun had called them in to coordinate the operation.

"I'm a criminal investigator from Hongkou Branch Bureau."

Yu Dazhang got out of the car at the gate and showed his credentials.

The officer looked at his build, then looked at the brand-new off-road vehicle behind him.

"Criminal investigator?" He eyed the fat man in front of him skeptically, checking the credentials over and over again.

What's that supposed to mean... Yu Dazhang was not pleased.

Is this discrimination against overweight people?!

If he weren't in such a hurry to get inside, he'd have to have a proper showdown with this officer.

After confirming the credentials were real, the officer finally handed them back.

Driving the car into the funeral home, Yu Dazhang quickly spotted Li Jun, and beside him he saw several familiar faces.

Wei Qian, his mentor Lu Zhongxin, and several officers from the First Brigade.

Even the First Brigade was called in... Only now did Yu Dazhang realize what Li Jun meant by "deploy police forces immediately."

He'd mobilized every officer he could get his hands on — you could see how seriously he was taking this.

Parking the car in a nearby spot, Yu Dazhang got out and headed straight for them.

Walking up, he first went around greeting everyone:

"Captain Li, Captain Wei, Master..."

Just as he was about to ask what the situation was, he noticed they were looking at him a bit oddly.

Seems like they're not looking at me... Yu Dazhang followed their gaze and looked back over his shoulder.

His eyes landed right on his own off-road vehicle.

"Where'd you get the car?" Li Jun asked.

That's a strange question... Yu Dazhang puffed out his chest and answered matter-of-factly:

"Bought it."

"Where'd you get the money?" That one came from Wei Qian and Lu Zhongxin together.

Look down on who, exactly.

Is he not allowed to have money to buy a car?

"Fine." Yu Dazhang hung his head, his voice dropping too:

"My girlfriend gave it to me."

This was never going to stay secret anyway.

The people in front of him knew his family situation and salary inside out.

While it wasn't quite that he couldn't afford it, they could be sure Yu Dazhang would never bring himself to buy a gas-guzzling off-road vehicle.

The moment they heard it was a gift from his girlfriend, they immediately looked away and turned their attention back to the funeral home.

The whole branch bureau knew about Qu Tuotuo and Yu Dazhang.

Gossip like this had been chewed over behind his back ages ago.

Labels like kept man, live-in son-in-law, toyboy had long since been stuck on Yu Dazhang.

Some people had even given him a nickname behind his back: Fatty Three.

Put bluntly, it was pure envy and spite — they couldn't stand that Yu Dazhang had landed a beautiful, rich girlfriend.

But they also knew this fat man wasn't someone to mess with, so they didn't dare mock him to his face — they could only run their mouths behind his back.

"Captain Li, did you catch those four people I sent you the info on separately?" Back when he was in the Qingpu Branch Bureau parking lot, Yu Dazhang had already sent Li Jun the identity information of the four people who'd posed as corpses.

He'd also sent him the case file.

Since he'd already fallen out with Ji Bin, Yu Dazhang had no intention of holding back.

No ability, no guts — a man like that didn't deserve to touch this case.

The only thing he felt was a pity for the task force members who'd been running around with him for days.

Credit that was almost in the bag, handed over to someone else just like that.

Working under a leader who was that timid and shrinking — you could say the future looked pretty bleak.

"Before you got here, our people already had them under control." Li Jun glanced toward the main gate:

"They're being escorted over to our side right now."

"Did the Qingpu Branch Bureau people try to stop them?" Yu Dazhang asked.

Earlier, one of the team members had told him that police had already been arranged to put those four people under residential surveillance.

With Hongkou Branch Bureau swooping in to steal them this time, they couldn't possibly just sit by and do nothing.

Please... collect... 6... 9... book.... bar....!

"After I finished the call with you, I contacted Captain Ji," Li Jun replied:

"He agreed to let us take over this case."

The other party was treating this case as a burden to dump on Hongkou Branch... Yu Dazhang immediately guessed Ji Bin's thoughts.

Still doesn't trust me.

Yu Dazhang believed this was the main reason.

Hearing Li Jun's analysis, Yu Dazhang could deploy all police forces for the arrest without hesitation precisely because there was enough trust between them.

Seeing that Yu Dazhang was somewhat depressed, Li Jun patted his shoulder:

"Let's get down to business."

Yu Dazhang nodded, his eyes immediately cooling down:

"Take all the staff on the payroll at the funeral home back to assist with the investigation."

"The mortician is a major suspect; interrogate him separately."

They said "assist with the investigation," but in reality, it meant taking them back to the station for temporary detention.

If concrete evidence could be found within twenty-four hours, "assisting with the investigation" would directly turn into criminal detention.

If no concrete evidence was found, they would have to release the people, and moreover, bear the subsequent joint liabilities.

People in state-owned units wouldn't swallow a bitter loss without a fight.

Even if only to prove their innocence, they would force Hongkou Branch to issue a punishment result.

Unfortunately, Yu Dazhang wouldn't give them that chance.

Hearing Li Jun say that the four people pretending to be corpses had already been brought under control, he knew this case was secure.

Next, the detectives from the detachment and the First Brigade, totaling more than thirty people, immediately sprang into action.

The people at the funeral home had never seen such a spectacle; from top to bottom, they were scared silly.

Let alone resisting, not even one tried to escape.

During the arrest process, those four people were also brought back.

Looking at the four people being escorted off the car by the officers, Yu Dazhang's eyes immediately sharpened.

Although their faces could not be clearly distinguished in the surveillance video beforehand.

But through the form of their steps while walking, Yu Dazhang could determine that these four people were the "corpses" who had mysteriously left the morgue that day.

Some friends might think this is nonsense.

But in fact, compared to a person's appearance, body type and gait are what reflect their identity more clearly in surveillance.

Even the big data screening of surveillance footage does not rely entirely on facial recognition.

A person's face can be concealed through makeup, obstruction, and other means, but gait is almost fixed.

In criminal investigation science, being able to identify a person through footprints is also because a person's gait has special characteristics.

These are reflected in the footprints they leave behind.

That day in the morgue, although their bodies were stiff from the cold, some detailed habits while walking were still unchangeable.

"Contact the Technical Section," Yu Dazhang said to Li Jun:

"The Qingpu Branch previously collected fingerprints and extracted footprints at the scene; have our Technical Section coordinate with them to get these physical evidence items."

(End of this chapter)