Chapter 244: He Was Finding It Increasingly Difficult

Some people becoming the best in their field is never a coincidence.

Take Qian Cheng, Ye Zhiyu, and Xia Bin for example.

Only by loving one's craft deeply enough can one possess abilities far beyond one's peers.

And the profession of sketch artist is even called a "panda profession."

Let me put it this way.

How many active-duty police officers are there in the whole country?

Over two million.

That figure doesn't include those on institutional payroll or contract positions.

Of course it doesn't include auxiliary police either.

And among these two million-plus people, there are only a little over a hundred sketch artists.

See the ratio?

Picking out one from twenty thousand would already be impressive.

Truly one in ten thousand.

Among these hundred-plus sketch artists, those who can hold a post at the provincial department can be counted on one hand.

The industry even gave them a nickname: human flesh camera.

"That'll do." Yu Dazhang looked at Xia Bin, a satisfied expression on his face:

"Later I'll provide you with the images, and you'll be the one to identify them."

Xia Bin nodded confidently:

"Alright."

About half an hour later, the computers were delivered.

Just as Xia Bin had guessed, all four computers were brand new.

After setting them up, Yu Dazhang booted his own and put the disc into the optical drive.

Have to say, Ding Feng is a very meticulous person when it comes to work.

He had annotated the back of every disc.

Not only did he write the victim's name, he also marked the time and location of the crime.

Soon, surveillance footage popped up on the computer screen.

Yu Dazhang was watching in chronological order.

The first disc's content was the on-site surveillance of the first victim being abducted.

The image quality was very clear; one could clearly see the victim walking out of his home.

Just as he stepped out the door, the suspect rushed out from a van beside him.

After knocking the victim out, he dragged him onto the van and sped off.

This time an elbow strike was used, landing squarely on the back of the victim's neck.

What precision… Yu Dazhang sighed inwardly.

He deliberately paused the video, freezing the frame at the exact moment the suspect struck the victim.

That blow landed precisely one inch above the victim's carotid artery.

That spot avoids the junction of the skull and cervical spine, so it won't damage the brainstem.

But it can cause cerebral hypoxia, making a person briefly faint.

Yu Dazhang raised his arm, imitating the suspect in the video, and performed the same motion in the air.

The force is easy to control, but the accuracy is lacking.

"Come here."

Yu Dazhang beckoned to Ye Zhiyu across from him.

"I refuse." Ye Zhiyu had just seen him make an elbow-strike motion and immediately sensed trouble.

"Don't be scared." Yu Dazhang stood up, walked over, and grabbed his arm:

"Just help me locate the acupoint."

Ye Zhiyu struggled a couple of times and found he had absolutely no strength to resist.

With no choice, he could only give up fighting back:

"Then… be careful, don't hurt me."

Seeing him cowering, Yu Dazhang laughed:

"Don't move, I'm just measuring."

He spoke very casually, but the force in his grip didn't lessen one bit.

An elbow strike swung hard toward the back of Ye Zhiyu's neck, and just as it was about to touch his neck, it stopped dead.

Ye Zhiyu only felt a gust of wind behind his head and instinctively shrank his neck.

Didn't hit…

Off by half an inch.

Yu Dazhang was not satisfied and tried again.

Still didn't hit.

Just like that, holding Ye Zhiyu, he swung repeatedly more than ten times.

In the end Ye Zhiyu really couldn't take it anymore—although he hadn't been hit, the thing was terrifying.

"Enough, enough." He patted the hand Yu Dazhang had gripping him and said loudly:

"Stop it, find someone else to go crazy with you."

Judging from Ye Zhiyu's expression, if Yu Dazhang didn't let go, he was about to bite down. After releasing him, Yu Dazhang sat back down.

He'd tried more than ten times just now, and only four hit the mark.

Without some kind of similar training, landing a hit in one try would be nearly impossible.

A close-combat expert… Yu Dazhang silently added another tag to the suspect in his mind.

Then he watched the suspect's process from striking to withdrawing twice more.

The whole thing took twelve seconds.

One could say it was done in a single fluid motion.

Finally, he took a screenshot, then cropped out the surveillance timestamp in the upper left.

Next came the second disc.

This time the whole process took thirteen seconds, just as smooth as last time.

Yu Dazhang still took a screenshot and saved it.

!

The third disc, the fourth…

All the way to the last disc.

This last one was the on-site surveillance of Li Yong being hijacked — Yu Dazhang had already seen it back in Songhai.

Watching it again now, he noticed something a little off.

It wasn't that the surveillance footage had changed; it was that, by comparison, this last time took longer than the previous eight.

Twenty-two seconds in total!

A full ten seconds longer than the first time.

"It clearly looked pretty smooth, the movements weren't slow either…"

Yu Dazhang muttered to himself, then watched the process of Li Yong being attacked once more.

"Now that's truly strange."

In his view, the suspect's movements were still very agile — one close-quarters move and Li Yong was knocked out, clean and decisive.

So where was the time wasted?

After watching twice more, Yu Dazhang finally spotted what felt off.

He replayed the surveillance footage once again.

This time he started timing from when the suspect got out of the car, all the way until Li Yong was knocked out.

After hitting pause, he calculated the time.

Seven seconds.

Although this time was also a bit longer than the previous ones, the difference wasn't much.

A difference of a second or half a second in the attack process was actually quite normal.

But what came next was no longer a matter of a second or half a second.

Dragging Li Yong into the car took the suspect a whopping fifteen seconds.

Yu Dazhang's attention had previously been entirely on the attack itself, and he'd overlooked this final wrap-up.

It's like watching an action film — your attention gets drawn to the exciting fight, and very few people remember the transitional bits.

Next, Yu Dazhang carefully watched this fifteen-second dragging process twice.

The movements were clearly labored.

At the moment of hauling him into the car, the suspect even paused for two seconds, looking like he was taking a brief rest.

"His stamina has dropped…"

Yu Dazhang quickly reached a judgment.

Did he come after doing some physical labor?

That didn't seem very likely.

Yu Dazhang didn't think the suspect would be in the mood to do odd jobs at a time like this.

But it didn't look like illness either.

With Li Yong's build, he had to weigh at least a hundred and sixty jin.

And a person in a state of unconsciousness is the hardest to drag.

There's a saying: dead-heavy, dead-heavy.

It's used specifically to describe a person after they've passed out.

If it were an ordinary person dragging the unconscious Li Yong into the car, it would take at least a minute.

And the person doing it couldn't be too skinny either, otherwise they simply wouldn't be able to haul him up.

The suspect dragging Li Yong into the car in fifteen seconds was actually already quite impressive.

But compared to his earlier self, he did indeed look much more strained.

Then…

What had caused his stamina to drop?

Had he spent the whole previous night with a woman?

If he couldn't figure it out, he simply stopped thinking about it… Yu Dazhang took another screenshot, cropped out the surveillance timestamp, and saved it in a folder.

Then he shuffled the order of the nine screenshots he'd extracted.

After finishing all this, he looked up at Xia Bin:

"I've pulled out the images for you — come over and identify them."

(End of this chapter)