Chapter 1027

Click. Click-click. Click-click.

In the corridor of Building 9, the rhythmic sound of metal colliding echoed for quite a while.

After this series of sounds stopped, Miao Ruixiang was seen coming out with a full pot of fried rice. Jiang Yuan followed behind, wiping his hands with a towel.

The others quickly made space, took out the prepared bowls and chopsticks, and started dividing the fried rice.

The diced beef the size of beans, the golden rice, the soft but not mushy carrots, and various vegetables with changing colors but difficult-to-identify identities made the aroma of the fried rice present a state that was extremely complex and high-end.

"It smells so good... Just for this bowl of fried rice, it was worth the trip to Ningtai County." Li Haochen, who had come from the capital by plane and then transferred by car, actively stepped forward to help.

What Jiang Yuan made today was a pot of fried rice based on Uncle Seventeen's Egg Fried Rice (LV3), fused with LV5 cooking skills (dog). The ingredients were very generous, and they were stir-fried separately, which could be considered a bit of a mastery.

The performance of the crowd could also prove this point, including the two white-shirted officials from the Ministry and the Provincial Department; while they were reserved in their posture, their expressions while eating were also joyful.

After Jiang Yuan himself wolfed down a bowl, he started eating the second bowl slowly.

Performing a comprehensive autopsy on the first corpse not only consumed time and energy but also consumed a lot of mental power, making it very easy to feel hungry.

The crowd chatted while eating, and it wasn't until the spatula made a clanging sound that they gradually stopped.

Division Chief Zheng, the Deputy Division Chief from the Ministry, said with satisfaction: "I've discovered that forensic experts are quite versatile, but this is the first time I've seen someone cook so well. I didn't expect our God Jiang to have this skill too."

"Just call me Jiang Yuan." Jiang Yuan was full and still had emotional intelligence; the other party was older than Uncle Seventeen, so how could he be embarrassed to let someone call him God Jiang?

Division Chief Zheng smiled, said a few more polite words, and after the table was cleaned up, he said: "In my impression, ordinary cases in Ningtai are solved in a few days, and now this case should have been going on for a week... Actually, according to the normal process of a homicide, a week isn't considered long. Does it need to be upgraded to the level of a Ministry-supervised case?"

"That is still necessary." Huang Qiangmin quickly took over the conversation. Ministry-supervised cases provide funding; if one doesn't look at the responsibility part, the funding is the main part.

And as for responsibility... Jiang Yuan was handling the case personally, so if it couldn't be solved, he had definitely tried his best.

In fact, Huang Qiangmin hadn't really considered the situation of it not being solved. Over the past two years, Huang Qiangmin had considered the situation of a case not being solved many times. The situation at the time also supported his judgment.

But as for the final result, as long as the case was handed to Jiang Yuan, he always had a way to solve it.

By now, Huang Qiangmin no longer thought about similar questions; thinking about it was useless. To a certain extent, Huang Qiangmin had become dull to the success or failure of cases.

Huang Qiangmin was more willing to trust Jiang Yuan.

Operations like forensic biology, which in the eyes of an old criminal police officer like him seemed almost outrageous, were actually successfully replicated in the country by Jiang Yuan. Huang Qiangmin felt that the information he possessed was really insufficient to predict the outcome of the case.

However, regardless of the method of solving the case, resources were essential.

Division Chief Zheng just asked that; after confirming Huang Qiangmin's attitude, he said: "Since it's a case that even Jiang Yuan feels is difficult, and it's such a heinous case, there should be no problem with your application for a Ministry-supervised case. However, Ministry-supervised cases have a time limit for solving..."

"Understood." Huang Qiangmin certainly knew that Ministry-supervised cases were equivalent to a time-limited investigation given by the Ministry. Although that was the case, police forces in various places still actively applied for Ministry-supervised cases.

On one hand, if a Ministry-supervised case with a time limit really couldn't be solved, the consequences were certainly bad, but not bad enough to affect one's future. On the other hand, most people's thoughts were actually the same as Huang Qiangmin's: some cases were too heinous, and even without Ministry supervision, they had to and should be solved as quickly as possible.

Moreover, for the current case, if it couldn't be solved in the relatively short initial period, the probability of it being solved later was very low. Therefore, at the beginning, one had to strive for resources as much as possible.

The resource of a "Ministry-supervised case" could be said to be the most awesome resource a small-city police officer could see. In addition to the support of national experts, laboratories, and related forces, the most important thing about a "Ministry-supervised case" was that there was a bonus. Once the case was solved, this money would be reasonably and legally distributed to the police officers at all levels who participated in the battle.

This was still quite rare; nowadays, police stations rarely received bonuses for solving cases. To get a bonus, it had to be a "Ministry-supervised case," rewarded or offered as a bounty by superiors. The quantity was extremely small, and it might not even be one's turn once in two or three years.

But on the other hand, once a case was labeled as "Ministry-supervised," not only the grassroots police but also units and leaders at all levels would pay attention to it, which formed a joint force. The so-called "twisting into a rope" required a very high level of leadership art. Now that there was the sign of a Ministry-supervised case, it was much simpler; with a decent level of leadership, everyone naturally had a direction to exert their strength.

Division Chief Zheng clearly valued Jiang Yuan more. Even after Huang Qiangmin confirmed, he still looked at Jiang Yuan and asked: "What about Jiang Yuan? How do you feel?"

"Uh..." Jiang Yuan hesitated, then followed the technical train of thought and said: "I've been studying these three corpses for the past few days. For the time being, there are no particularly good direct clues. I'm currently trying to use forensic anthropology to determine the source of the corpses, but the difficulty is still very high, and there hasn't been a breakthrough yet."

"What about forensic botany? I heard you are also very good at this, at an internationally leading level." Division Chief Zheng was full of interest.

Jiang Yuan said: "This first requires extracting diatoms from the Taihe line; only when the database is completed will there be a basis for comparison. But whether it can be matched is still hard to determine."

Diatoms in water are actually regional. Diatoms in a river section will live in that area for a long time, just like human villages. Diatoms in a village often have similar or identical genes.

Precisely because of this characteristic, diatoms are the most widely applied forensic botany technology in the field of criminal investigation, just as flies are the most widely applied technology in forensic entomology.

Division Chief Zheng understood this slightly, and therefore became more active: "In that case, you actually already have a train of thought."

"But I can't lock it in." Jiang Yuan said helplessly: "Analyzing bones alone, the stability is really insufficient."

In the previous few days, Jiang Yuan had been studying these bones, trying to determine the source of the corpses through forensic anthropology—or to use a more professional term, using forensic anthropology to perform individual identification.

But it must be said that this stuff is extremely difficult. If it weren't for this, forensic experts wouldn't need to invent skull reconstruction, forensic biology, and other technologies.

Jiang Yuan has LV3 forensic anthropology, which is definitely enough. In terms of rarity and expert ranking, Jiang Yuan's LV3 forensic anthropology ranking might be comparable to a fingerprint expert at the LV5 level.

But forensic anthropology is indeed unstable. Just looking at an age, gender, height, etc., is no problem, but to be specific to identifying an individual, there has to be a bit of fate involved.

Three corpses, or rather two corpses plus a fraction—Jiang Yuan studied them back and forth, but never reached a conclusion.

Division Chief Zheng understood Jiang Yuan a bit more. He looked at Huang Qiangmin, then at Jiang Yuan, and said: "The sign of a Ministry-supervised case is like a starting gun. Once the gun goes off, even if you don't want to run, you have to run. I think we should just start running first; study while investigating."

Huang Qiangmin agreed: "The special task force has already been established, and Wang Chuanxing and the others are all on standby."

"The main thing is that there isn't even an investigation scope right now." Jiang Yuan wasn't being pretentious; the Taihe River is so long that even if a series of characteristics of the bones were given, there was no investigation interval.

Huang Qiangmin waved his hand: "Let's investigate Qinghe City first. Didn't you already take the fingerprints of the first corpse? Now draw a line, and we'll investigate in Qinghe City. Whether it's missing persons or people who have temporarily left the country, the number won't be too large."

Division Chief Zheng approved: "Even if we can only determine a rough age, it can greatly narrow down the investigation scope. Can the age be determined?"

Jiang Yuan nodded: "The victim is male, the age should be 25; for safety's sake, 24 to 26 years old."

"Okay, can the height be confirmed?"

"172 to 174 centimeters." Jiang Yuan paused: "The shoe size should be 42 to 43."

"Uh..." Division Chief Zheng hesitated: "Hasn't this already been determined?"

Jiang Yuan shook his head: "Occupation and lifestyle habits, etc., remain to be considered."

"This... haha..." Division Chief Zheng showed an uncomfortable smile.

The expressions of the Ministry and Provincial Department cadres present were similar.

Several people from the Ningtai County Bureau and Qinghe City Bureau quickly lowered their heads to hide the fact that they had eaten fine bran.