Chapter 1121

Buzz...

A formation of drones lined up and returned from the mountain stream. They continuously absorbed the returning drones along the way until they reached the open space in front of the mountain pass, where they hovered in mid-air before slowly landing one by one.

At the same time, the fully charged drones were taking off or being catapulted as scheduled.

The commander in charge of these small drone operations checked the returning drones with their subordinates. After confirming everything was correct, they ran to the command vehicle nearby, shouted "Report," and then said, "The target area has been searched, nothing found."

"Continue searching." The captain inside the command vehicle responded, then turned to Jiang Yuan and Xu Taining and said, "In that case, D3 has also been searched."

"Then please have the troops move forward and continue the search ahead." Xu Taining's mood was stable.

"Yes." After confirming with their superior, the captain began to issue orders.

The lieutenant colonel detachment leader next to them coughed twice and said, "Director Xu, are you really not considering searching the mountain pass first? In our experience, once people enter the mountains, the paths they can take are actually limited. I've been to Liangming Mountain here three times. The small paths in the mountains basically follow the mountain passes; you only climb the ridges when you reach the main peak, and climbing the ridges is the easiest way to be spotted by drones..."

Xu Taining smiled and said, "Searching the mountain pass first is indeed one approach; it should be said that it's a relatively efficient approach. But out of caution, I think it's better to proceed step by step. I'm mainly worried about two issues. First, if we follow the mountain pass, it's easy to make our troop lines thin, making it easy for the criminals to slip out. Second, we must guard against the criminals hiding in caves or deep in the old forests."

The lieutenant colonel detachment leader frowned and said, "You're overthinking it. This level of infiltration, plus wilderness survival skills—let alone these criminals, even special forces soldiers in the military might not be able to pull it off. It would have to be that kind of 'soldier king' level to have a chance. Don't look at how many heroes and good men there are in war history who seem to have accomplished this feat easily; those were all piled up from dead bodies."

Xu Taining also became slightly more serious: "The problem is, if these two people run out, or even if just one runs out, they could potentially kill many people. By then, what use will all the effort our province put in be?"

The lieutenant colonel detachment leader was stunned.

Xu Taining smiled, softened his tone, and said, "Lieutenant Colonel Zhang, our perspectives on considering problems are different. You might be thinking about how to complete the mission quickly and efficiently, and in most cases, you also have to consider cost-effectiveness. As for us... at least speaking for myself, I don't calculate it that way. Actually, think about it: just the number of drones you're commanding, plus the large drones flying in the sky—just to catch two people, what kind of cost-effectiveness is there in this?"

The command vehicle Lieutenant Colonel Zhang was responsible for also controlled several large drones, which were flying over Liangming Mountain at that moment. These big guys with wingspans over 10 meters required special takeoff and landing sites, so they didn't take off or land there, but the amount of information they collected was enormous, and their performance was something small drones couldn't match.

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang listened and gave a wry smile: "It seems I was overthinking it. I originally thought that at least we could catch the people faster, so it would be easier for you to report back."

"Faster is naturally better. But between us, the leaders are anxious—what does that have to do with me?" Xu Taining smiled and said, "As a leader, you deserve to bear the pressure. If you can't bear the pressure, what kind of leader are you, right? It's easy for me to do this faster, but doing it fast just makes the leaders happy for a moment. But what's the use of the leaders being happy? A little earlier or a little later—who knows, maybe if they're happy two days later, they'll be even happier. But what is the cost?"

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang was speechless; since the other party could handle the leaders, he had nothing to say.

Xu Taining was enjoying himself and continued on his own: "I haven't seen many cases of things being both fast and good. If the superiors want to drive at 120 while capping the speed, the middle management has to increase it to 144, and by the time it reaches the execution level, it has to be 180. Why? Because you will always encounter traffic jams and times when you need to slow down and yield. If the superiors want a constant 120 throughout, you have to drive at 180 to guarantee it—wouldn't that be dangerous?"

"You criminal police are truly calculating." Lieutenant Colonel Zhang said, neither praising nor mocking.

Xu Taining also smiled. In all his years of work, he hadn't received many flowers, but he had received plenty of complaints, yet many people still came to him to handle cases. Xu Taining wasn't planning on changing.

For someone doing his kind of work, being amiable is not only useless but harmful. Actually, criminal police are all about the same, especially veteran criminal police; the way they look at people is different. After doing many major cases, they often look at their own family members with scrutiny, which is generally unwelcome.

"Let's eat." Xu Taining smiled and said, "We'll push forward after lunch. As long as the people are in the mountains, there's nothing to fear."

"The game in the mountains is in for bad luck." Lieutenant Colonel Zhang also laughed out loud.

"You said it yourself, they're game. Besides, how much game can they even hunt?" Xu Taining blinked.

Lunch was prepared using the military's Type 97A field kitchen truck. Four soldiers from the cooking squad could prepare meals for 150 people in one hour. The teams surrounding the mountain were organized by squadron (company) and ate at one-hour intervals, so one kitchen truck could handle the supply needs of a large brigade (battalion).

And to surround Liangming Mountain—although not physically surrounding it in the true sense—that wasn't something a detachment of over 1,000 people could handle. Counting the needs for rotation, just the kitchen trucks for cooking would require over a dozen.

During the mission, the food standards were naturally adjusted as high as possible, with an especially large amount of meat provided.

It wouldn't work otherwise. They were all young men around 20 years old. After climbing the mountain all day, whether they ran back to eat or were delivering food up, everyone's appetite was explosive. The 97A could only steam 25 kilograms of rice at a time, so even with steamed buns and stuffed buns added, they still needed a large amount of protein to be enough.

The appetites of middle-aged and older men like Xu Taining and Liu Jinghui were significantly lower; one bowl of rice per person was more than enough, and they only dared to order one type of braised pork or steamed pork with rice flour to avoid not being able to buckle their belts.

Jiang Yuan, on the other hand, had a lunchbox full of rice, topped with plenty of braised beef with potatoes, mixed in with some small crispy pork, and finished it all off with a slurping sound. Then he got another box of rice, poured the braised pork sauce over it first, then the stir-fried tomato and eggs, then covered half of it with steamed pork with rice flour and half with sliced pork, and finally topped it with a bit of green vegetables—the specific name didn't matter, just stir-fried with minced garlic.

"Whew..." Jiang Yuan finished the second box of rice, let out a long breath, then popped open a can of cola, took a big gulp, and felt full of energy.

"I envy you young people." Xu Taining also let out a long sigh. He mainly ate vegetables, which tasted very average, and the young people in the cooking squad clearly lacked enthusiasm for this kind of food as well.

Jiang Yuan couldn't empathize with Xu Taining, just as ordinary Jiang Village people couldn't empathize with ordinary Ningtai people.

Jiang Yuan wiped his mouth and said, "The young man is full, time to go to work."

"Thank you for your hard work. Hey, I also envy your brain." Xu Taining was also drooling over the many technologies Jiang Yuan had mastered. Forensic experts who understood trace examination were a dime a dozen, but a forensic expert who understood satellite remote sensing and could read and create maps was too rare.

As a Jiang Village person, Jiang Yuan had been surrounded by all kinds of envy since he grew up, so he smiled naturally, waved his hand, and went to look at the maps.

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang hurriedly followed, took out the specially prepared rugged laptop for Jiang Yuan, connected the data cable, and updated the data brought back by the drones.

Jiang Yuan first opened Pix4d to scan roughly. The amount of data brought back by the drones was too enormous, to the point that data processing had become a real bottleneck.

For this reason, after weighing the pros and cons, Jiang Yuan exchanged one of his two accumulated First-Class Merits for Image Recognition and Analysis (LV5).

It was also because he had two First-Class Merits accumulated that Jiang Yuan could make such a decisive choice.

He was keeping the other First-Class Merit in case he encountered a case that really couldn't be solved, so it could still be put to use.

And "Image Recognition and Analysis" could not only be used on images brought back by drones, but images from satellite remote sensing or photographs were equally useful.

For the modern society with countless cameras, the application scope of this skill was broad enough, and it could fill the gaps in Jiang Yuan's skill set.

The technicians of the image investigation brigade were certainly useful, and you could have as many as you wanted, but those expert-level technicians who could reach LV3 were truly too rare.

The asking price outside was too high; one had to have an extremely strong heart or an extremely thick family background to resist such temptation.

Jiang Yuan selected a batch of the scanned images and processed them carefully using the LV5 image enhancement technology.

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang was also a professional, so he naturally understood Jiang Yuan's operations. He waited by the side the whole time, serving tea and water while secretly learning the technology. Mainly the former.

Compared to Xu Taining, Lieutenant Colonel Zhang admired Jiang Yuan a bit more.

Essentially, the two were doing the same thing—both were looking for a needle in a haystack. However, Xu Taining at least knew the needle was in the sea, while Jiang Yuan didn't. Just like this batch of images in front of them, there was a high probability there was no usable information, yet Jiang Yuan still had to process them carefully, even more meticulously.

Not finding it didn't prove it didn't exist, and even after searching meticulously, still not finding it didn't prove it didn't exist; one could only continue to search, full of hope, and be even more serious...

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang knew he didn't have Jiang Yuan's technology, but what he was even less sure about was, if he had Jiang Yuan's technology, would he still search for hope so seriously?

"Lieutenant Colonel Zhang?" Jiang Yuan picked up his coffee and took a sip.

"Here!" Lieutenant Colonel Zhang stood at attention subconsciously, as if called by a superior.

Jiang Yuan was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "There are a few routes here, could you please arrange for the drones to fly over them again? You can fly a bit lower and take clearer shots."

Jiang Yuan picked up the paper map and, without using a ruler, drew a large sausage-shaped circle on it with a pencil.

"Yes. Should we send a squadron for armed reconnaissance?" Lieutenant Colonel Zhang was worried Jiang Yuan was reluctant to use the troops.

"Not yet." Jiang Yuan shook his head slowly and said, "Because this area is a broad-leaved mixed forest, the images brought back by the drones are relatively difficult to identify."

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang hesitated for a moment and said, "If we fly low, the criminals might hide if they spot the drones... Or, I can call in another large high-resolution aircraft..."

"No need. I want to scan this area not to see where the criminals are, but to see if there are any traces they left behind."

"Can traces be seen?"

Jiang Yuan looked at him strangely and said, "As long as the resolution is sufficient, identifying any image is nothing more than a matter of feature extraction... Of course, identifying traces left by living people is more difficult than identifying obvious targets like dead bodies, but these two fugitives aren't very professional either; they've left heavy traces of their daily life, so there's still a lot of hope."