Chapter 108

Wenxiang, Ningtai County, Qinghe City, Shannan Province.

Jiang Yuan got out of the car and looked at the inexplicably familiar environment, feeling only intimate and that his butt hurt a lot.

Speeding for hundreds of kilometers in a Great Wall Cannon is definitely a decision with vibration.

"Let's go directly to the scene." Liu Jinghui was older, had weak physical strength, a bad back, insufficient energy, and his body's hardness and endurance were all declining; he actually couldn't stand fatigue driving. If it weren't for the case hanging over him, he would want to find a hard board bed to lie on and pretend to be a corpse right now.

When he first met Section Chief Liu, he was as exquisite and arrogant as a national second-class protected animal, the red-bellied tragopan; at this moment, he had already become an old hen caught by its owner, scalded and ready to be plucked.

The young police officer following him responded with an "Okay," and then nervously whispered: "Our Bureau Chief Zhang is here!"

Liu Jinghui looked up and saw that in the car in front, Zhang Tao, the deputy bureau chief in charge of criminal investigation at the Ningtai County Bureau, had gotten out of the car and was walking over to greet them.

Liu Jinghui had no choice but to pile a full face of smiles again, step forward, and wave his hands in greeting: "Bureau Chief Zhang is here."

Working down from the provincial bureau, relying entirely on hard skills doesn't work, and relying entirely on being hard doesn't work either; one should be soft when necessary, and being moderately soft and hard is best.

Jiang Yuan and the others waited with peace of mind, his heart thinking about the case.

As a result, he was nudged on the arm by the young policeman next to him, signaling him to look over.

Jiang Yuan turned his head and saw that Section Chief Liu might have been talking about him, and then Bureau Chief Zhang was looking at him.

He was still a newcomer and was slightly nervous, but just thinking about the system and his father, he straightened up instantly, his posture becoming increasingly upright.

Bureau Chief Zhang probably smiled at them.

It was very warm and also very ruthless. Jiang Yuan couldn't help but think of the school beauty at his university; the smiles had the same effect, which was that everyone felt the school beauty was smiling at them.

After a while, when the leaders finished chatting, everyone started climbing toward the forest land.

Compared to the dense forest of Mount Wu Longshan, the forest land of Wenxiang was like a little brother who hadn't even poked his head out. The fast-growing forest was upright and dense, but the vegetation on the ground was not dense. Walking through it was not only unimpeded for the group, but even quite comfortable.

The light and shadows were mottled, and the breeze was gentle.

This made the few people who had just walked out of the old forest feel somewhat unaccustomed to it.

Walking over a mountain ridge, the forest land finally had a slight feeling of blocking the sky and the sun. After years of growth, the forest area here was approaching maturity. Although climbing up and down was still very inconvenient, at least they were all mountain paths over a meter wide, and they were in a state of being frequently walked by people.

"Setting fire here is also courting death." Liu Jinghui couldn't help but comment as he walked.

"So the speed of filing the case at that time was also very fast." Bureau Chief Zhang said: "It's a pity that we didn't catch anyone in the end."

"There are always cases that cannot be solved. Our case also reached a dead end before seeking help from everyone." Liu Jinghui took the opportunity to say a few nice words.

"You're too kind, you're too kind." Deputy Bureau Chief Zhang Tao was indeed very pleased and laughed loudly. Everyone immediately followed suit and laughed. The joyful laughter and satisfied expressions instantly brought the atmosphere to a climax, as if Liu Jinghui alone had amused more than a dozen people; it was truly remarkable.

"Arson cases are always difficult to solve. Honestly, even if a current arson case were handed to me now, I wouldn't dare say how much confidence I have in solving it." Liu Jinghui easily turned the topic around and said: "For this case, we still have to keep our spirits up."

"Definitely, definitely."

After a simple exchange, everyone arrived at the scene of the Wenxiang Forest Farm arson case.

At this time, a small patch of trees had grown out. The newly sprouted saplings were soft and tender, looking like they made people want to touch them.

Jiang Yuan and several crime scene investigators and trace examiners stepped on the flowers and plants, deep and shallow, and searched the arson range, but there was no strong evidence.

The previous arson case did not have a large burnt area, but because the nature of the case was arson, it appeared relatively important.

It was just that the fingerprints extracted from the case scene had never been matched, and the case eventually became a cold case.

If it hadn't been implicated by the Sun Jingyi murder case, this arson case might have disappeared from the cold case database.

However, regardless of the result of the previous arson case, it was now linked to the Sun Jingyi murder case and the entire series of cases in Mount Wu Longshan, so the suspect could not disappear.

Just at this point in time, the ins and outs of that bottle of Nongfu Spring had been figured out—its production date happened to be a few months before Sun Jingyi was killed, and the sales address and sales channels could not rule out the possibility that the suspect was involved in the Sun Jingyi murder case. Various signs and coincidences were enough to make the "Special Task Force" excited.

Since the discovery of the Mount Wu Longshan wild man case, clues had been scarce. Now that new clues were constantly emerging and new homicides were being discovered, the attention received by the Special Task Force was already very high, and the pressure followed.

At this time, Jiang Yuan being able to link a cold arson case to it could be said to have refreshed everyone's spirits.

As for whether the arson case would have nothing to do with the Sun Jingyi case,

If the arson case could be solved, the homicide case could be solved, and subsequently, the entire series of cases could be solved, then the problem would be greatly simplified.

Don't say that the arson case was difficult and had been unsolved for many years; that was based on the arson case itself.

When the arson case became the key to multiple series of homicide cases, its difficulty, in the minds of Liu Jinghui and others, simply did not exist.

And after simply looking at the scene of the arson case, in Liu Jinghui's mind, he didn't consider using any exquisite plan at all. With a wave of his hand, he said: "Bureau Chief Zhang, can you do a fingerprint collection for all the cadres and masses in Wenxiang?"

The resident population of Wenxiang was only 20,000. Doing a fingerprint collection for everyone wouldn't take much time or energy.

In order to solve homicide cases, there were plenty of cases where DNA matching was done for all adults in a township; the cost of fingerprints was much cheaper.

Of course, if anyone could propose an exquisite method now to help the provincial bureau and Ningtai County save this million-dollar case-handling expense, they would definitely get a big red flower, or several.

But including Jiang Yuan, no one said a word.

Cold cases—where is it so easy to be exquisite? If you can solve a case with money, just steal a laugh.

Collecting fingerprints naturally couldn't be done in the name of solving a case. However, this kind of thing no longer needed Liu Jinghui to worry about; the township government had plenty of mature and calm decei... exquisite plans.

Afternoon.

The banner of "Creating an Advanced Township for Provincial Fingerprint Work" had already been hung up, and not a single word was fake.

Liu Jinghui had just secured this quota for them, and it was the only quota in the entire province.

Wenxiang was greatly encouraged. This was a provincial-level commendation, and it carried the word "advanced," clearly implying progress. As for the middle part, what was it? Was there anything important?

To show emphasis, the township government office also brought out a truckload of apples, placed them next to the busiest intersection. Those who finished recording their fingerprints were given an apple on the spot, and they were allowed to choose for themselves, thus triggering a queue hundreds of meters long.

Provincial Bureau's Liu Jinghui instructed on the spot: "We must learn from the experience of the Bai Yin case and resolutely put an end to the phenomenon of people pressing fingerprints for others..."

Wenxiang guaranteed: "We will definitely focus on monitoring, make good use of the grassroots cadres' familiarity with the local population, and for migrant workers and resident populations, adopt unit responsibility and responsibility division..."

Ningtai County also mobilized almost everyone, rushing to Wenxiang, monitoring all intersections and small roads, especially the routes into the mountains.

Beautiful romance

For this kind of case, Liu Jinghui had his own ideas and experience, and he didn't believe that stealth investigation or secret investigation would be smoother. It was true that it cost less money, but as a criminal policeman, why should he calculate this kind of economic account every day?

Let's talk about it when the department head scolds people.

At this point in time, Liu Jinghui believed that a thunderous strike had a greater possibility of catching the person.

Even if the fingerprint collection of the entire township had no results, for Liu Jinghui, it also greatly narrowed the scope.

Because Wenxiang is located in a remote area, it is still a considerable distance from Mount Wu Longshan. The local forest farm and the forest farm of Mount Wu Longshan have no direct connection.

At this time, when the fingerprints on both sides matched, Liu Jinghui did not think it was a coincidence.

In fact, he intuitively believed that this person was the killer, and there was a high possibility that he was a Wenxiang person.

The old hunting trails of Mount Wu Longshan, not to mention being inaccessible, were basically only walked by herbalists, backpackers, and the "Backpacker Killing Group." An arsonist appearing within a few hundred meters of the victim's grave at a coincidental time—the coincidence component was too low.

And the forest farm of Mount Wen had a lower level of attraction than Mount Wu Longshan, and it didn't even have the potential for poaching and smuggling.

Liu Jinghui's plan was that if this person's fingerprints could not be recorded, he would start checking the household registration of Wenxiang, first doing video collection to exclude migrant workers, and then the number of remaining people should not be many.

Doing this naturally consumed huge resources and mobilized many people, but Liu Jinghui had experienced and organized many investigations of much larger scales than this, and he didn't take it to heart at all.

The fingerprints collected were then given to trace examiners to be entered into the fingerprint database for comparison.

By the afternoon of the second day, the main culprit of the arson case was nowhere to be found, but several small thieves were caught...

Section Chief Liu was under some pressure.

Jiang Yuan was also under some pressure.

However, he still seized the time to rest, sleeping first as a sign of respect.

The next morning.

The sound of children playing and laughing next door to the guesthouse woke Jiang Yuan up.

Jiang Yuan got up slowly, sat by the window, and looked at the innocent and cute children outside, feeling happy in his heart, so he took out his portable fountain pen and notebook and recorded briefly:

Income: Business trip with Provincial Bureau's Liu Jinghui, subsidy 3600 yuan. Additionally, father yuan (eating well), yuan (treating leaders to food and drink), bank transfer work subsidy yuan. Total

Expenses: Treating leaders to water, 20 yuan. Farmhouse restaurant treating leaders to chicken, 800 yuan. Online shopping for protective clothing, masks, mosquito nets, and other work necessities, 6100 yuan. Improving meals separately 4800 yuan. Total yuan

New balance: yuan.