Chapter 326: Setting aside the facts, do we have no merit at all?

Hey, Gao Feng, I'm still in the mountains.

Yeah, just finished. They've been wiped out, all of them.

With this dragnet, how could those guys escape? You don't know, but that guy died a miserable death.

Four mortar shells blew up the bandit and his unlucky cover into rubble. That armed police company commander is also a hothead—he even fired another four-zero shell at the wreckage, hahaha...

Gao Feng on the other end of the phone heard He Zhen Tao's description, beamed with joy, and let out a sigh of relief.

He hurriedly asked: "How's Lu Yang? Is he okay? How serious is the injury? Is he in danger?"

Just then, two medical staff wheeled a stretcher past.

Lu Yang on the stretcher, due to severe injuries, had fallen into a deep sleep; up close you could still hear his snoring.

He Zhen Tao thought seriously: "There should be no danger to his life, but he'll definitely need to stay in the hospital for a while."

Gao Feng startled: "That serious?"

He Zhen Tao nodded: "Four people went after him alone, and he killed three of them outright—just surviving is already not bad."

Gao Feng's face filled with disbelief, even though he wasn't at the scene and didn't know exactly what had happened.

But three against one, and they were all counter-killed—this is simply unbelievable.

You have to know, Lu Yang isn't a scout, nor a special forces soldier.

He's just a regular unit soldier, a grunt who's never seen combat.

Gao Feng clutched his chest, feeling something silently tear inside; he seemed to see a second-class merit waving at him, then leaping into Ma Qing'an's arms.

Forget it, we're all one family, we're all one family, we're all the same.

Everyone's merit is the same—who let me chase down and capture my own sister-in-law?

Mixing in society, you'll eventually have to pay it back, you'll eventually have to pay it back with interest; but the interest is a bit—too damn much, boo-hoo-hoo!

After hanging up, He Zhen Tao hurried over and got into the ambulance with Lu Yang.

Injured this badly, many places have torn skin and flesh; surgery is definitely needed.

As his unit leader, he's practically a guardian, responsible for filling out forms and signing.

Kang Changyi, Liu Ziqiang, Cheng Jun, LiMin and the others also wanted to go along.

But after all this, having gone back and forth worrying for so long, everyone's energy is completely drained; they should really go back and rest properly.

Especially the new recruits, they still have to go back to take the shooting assessment and arrange the platoon assignments—that's the top priority.

The ambulance doors closed, they pulled Lu Yang away from the mountains and headed for the central city's tertiary hospital.

At the same time, up on the mountain, a group in white coats wearing masks and gloves, holding small buckets, were grunting as they collected fragments of human tissue from the wreckage.

About three hours later, the bandits' corpses and all their remains were transported to the forensic division of the Public Security Criminal Technology Bureau.

Several public security officers and an armed police company commander were on site waiting for the autopsy results.

On three stainless steel autopsy tables, each covered with a white cloth lay a corpse.

The first corpse was not tall, about 1.6 meters, its head looked as if a chunk were missing.

The skull was smashed by a blunt object; strictly speaking, it was crushed by a heavy stone, killing him instantly.

Based on the scene reconstruction, he was likely ambushed from behind during the pursuit and killed with a single blow.

The coroner reconstructed the events from the fight's traces at the scene and that bloody stone.

The public security officers standing nearby looked at the corpse and began whispering among themselves.

That young officer surnamed Lu is pretty sharp.

Knowing he couldn't meet the enemy head‑on without weapons, he opted for a sneak attack to win.

Had it been an ordinary soldier facing such a life‑or‑death crisis, he'd probably have been scared witless and couldn't have pulled off a counter‑kill.

The armed police company commander who came along also nodded silently in agreement; this requires not only quick wit but also great courage and resolve.

The coroner approached the second corpse, which was missing a leg, its lower half a bloody mess, and its head bore several holes.

This man was the former arms keeper of the County People's Armed Forces Department; his death looks more like friendly fire from a comrade.

It might also have been intentional—the gunshot wound to the top of the head came from a Type 56, likely a comrade putting him out of his misery.

Still, strictly speaking, this guy's death is also related to that young officer.

The public security officers once again showed looks of surprise.

They all come from the Criminal Investigation Division and understand the twisted psychology of those vicious criminals.

So the latter scenario is very likely, but it usually takes an extraordinarily tough opponent to make them kill their own side as well.

From this we can see how much trouble Lu Yang's tailing and harassment caused this gang.

The armed police company commander looked like he wanted to speak but held back; he really wanted to ask the parties involved how they managed to escape safely under those circumstances.

But considering that, the coroner isn't omniscient—he can only roughly infer from the scene traces; and that stone house has already been blasted by them into a pile of rubble.

So the exact details probably only Lu Yang, the party involved, knows.

But at least the most dangerous guy died in the hands of the armed police—that's crucial.

The coroner pointed at this, at that disfigured corpse painstakingly pieced together, and said:

This guy wasn't small‑time; his codename was Kui Lang. He served eight years in a certain sharp‑knife reconnaissance unit in northern Vietnam, then went to the old lair, Gold Mountain Corner, and so on.

Two years ago he slipped into the south, followed a man called Hao Ge, and repeatedly robbed gold shops and armored trucks, succeeding each time.

Several innocent passersby and two policemen died at his hands; this Type 59 pistol was lost by one of those officers......

Hearing of his myriad misdeeds, everyone was filled with righteous indignation.

The armed police company commander also grunted angrily: "This is what they mean by the law's net being vast, letting nothing slip through. It's lucky we arrived in time to gun him down; otherwise, if he'd escaped, who knows how many more would have suffered."

You're wrong.

Where am I wrong?

People, it's true they were surrounded by you, but they weren't killed by your armed police.

The forensic doctor's words made him pause, and immediately sparked discontent.

The squadron commander had even already thought out how to write the after‑action report and how to claim honor for his squadron.

Now this forensic doctor, with a single sentence, negated their hard‑won results—how could he accept that?

"So many people saw us corner the criminals, and even a junior warrior was injured because of it."

"We didn't kill them; could it be the police? Should we speak with evidence?"

The forensic doctor didn't waste words, and ripped the white cloth covering the fragments of Kui Ge's corpse.

The patchwork of gruesome remains, along with large swaths of blood‑soaked, indistinct human tissue, made everyone present furrow their brows and show physiologically uncomfortable expressions.

Although they were veteran detectives, they were not forensic doctors, and their mental resilience lagged far behind those who dealt with corpses daily.

"This corpse, before you surrounded it, already had its calf blown off and was riddled with shrapnel. I recall you didn't use grenades during the assault?"

"Furthermore, his true fatal wound was in the abdomen; from this tissue fragment one can clearly see a huge bladed wound, its area reaching an astonishing 6×8."

"In other words, before you encircled him, the guy had already sustained a fatal injury, his intestines were even pulled out, and he tied a knot on himself."

"That means, even if you don't launch a full assault, as long as you surround him, he'll die from excessive wounds and blood loss, untreated..."

"......"

The atmosphere in the room instantly grew awkward.

Everyone seemed to realize that if they only surrounded without attacking, no one would get injured during the process.

This counts as a serious battlefield misjudgment; not only could they not claim merit, they might later be held accountable.

The armed police squadron commander broke out in cold sweat, and the joy of an imminent commendation vanished.

He still tried to defend himself: "Is this… just your speculation?"

"It's not speculation; it's science, it's medicine, it's logic."

"Leaving facts aside, during the final encirclement, did we armed police contribute nothing at all?"

The forensic doctor adjusted his glasses and answered truthfully: "I never denied your effort and hardship; I merely analyzed the corpse's cause of death objectively. He indeed was subjected to heavy fire only after death."

"Commonly called a 'whip corpse.'"