Chapter 1239

"Didn't find a suitable case?" Wu Zhisu felt a jolt in his heart.

He had been considering all sorts of possibilities along the way, and this one was the worst.

Fortunately, Huang Qingming lightly shook his head and said, "It's just our Jiang Yuan—he actually dug up one of your rotten corpse cases, the 1011 floating corpse case. Ring a bell?"

"Yes, how could there not be!" Wu Zhisu brightened up immediately—this was a cold case drowning, and cracking one is better than none.

Don't look at Jiang Yuan's Taihe working group handling all kinds of drowning cases day by day; when ordinary police stations actually encounter such cases, they're utterly fed up—otherwise, why would they be willing to pay the Taihe working group?

Wu Zhisu is the captain of the Jianjiang Municipal Criminal Police Detachment. Jianjiang is a prefecture-level city, on par with Qinghe, one level above Ningtai County. Even so, even if it's the criminal police detachment of a prefecture-level city, organizing a task force might not crack a drowning case in three to five months. Let alone cold cases—previously, solving such cases started with a second-class merit.

However, experts like Jiang Yuan are hard to book—it's only because Jianjiang is next to Ningtai County, with regular exchanges, that Wu Zhisu has felt Jiang Yuan's presence a few times.

But precisely because he's felt it, he can't let go now.

Solving a case is actually like doing problems—cases are like math problems, most of which are multiple-choice; at most there's a troublesome fill-in-the-blank. An ordinary criminal police detachment, over a year, can manage a short-answer question or a slightly harder one—and that's considered a full year.

Ordinary problems can be solved any which way; often, the discussion is really about time, cost-effectiveness—doing it as fast as possible with minimal input. For the police force, that means using as few personnel as possible and finishing quickly, with a certain accuracy requirement, but not too strict.

But the core of hard problems isn't time—it's about whether you can finish them. Setting up a task force is like a group discussion. But truly hard problems are those that even group discussion can't solve; harder cold case murders might be like problems even teachers in ordinary schools can't solve.

When Wu Zhisu saw Jiang Yuan pick the 1011 floating corpse case, he immediately tapped his head and said: "I remember this case was handled by the First Brigade, later supplemented with over a dozen people—the body was in terrible condition, but there were some personal effects in the pockets, so we started from those to find the buyer, but got nowhere..."

Huang Qingming listened casually and asked: "Has it been reopened?"

"No. No new leads, so reopening is pointless." Wu Zhisu said, glancing at Huang Qingming, then said: "What we agreed on can't be changed—what case you crack is what case you get. You're a decent person!"

"Rotten corpse case!" Huang Qingming emphasized.

"Rotten is rotten—what floating corpse isn't rotten? Besides, we had a judgment on the wound back then—that... forensic expert, you explain." Wu Zhisu hurried into the case discussion to avoid further talk with Huang Qingming.

Wen Youchuan quickly stepped forward and said: "We found a crescent-shaped blunt force injury on the head at the time; preliminary judgment: the weapon was a hammer."

As he spoke, he hurried to find photos in the file. This kind of thing counts as important imagery, so they're printed as physical photos.

While Jiang Yuan looked at the photos, Huang Qingming said to Wu Zhisu: "Ordinary rotting is fine, but this rotten corpse case—even if the dumping point is confirmed, it's still quite difficult."

"I understand, I understand, but what we agreed on can't change! Decent person." Wu Zhisu reached out and grabbed Huang Qingming's hand.

"Eight years!" Huang Qingming emphasized again.

Wu Zhisu then hesitated and said: "Can the diatoms from eight years ago still match today's?"

"If they match, they match; if not, they don't. This isn't the same as DNA." Huang Qingming said, then turned and shouted at Jiang Yuan: "You explain it to Captain Wu?"

Jiang Yuan let out an "oh" and said: "In water systems, there are generally high-dynamic zones and stable zones. High-dynamic waters—like river mouths, sewage outlets—have diatom structures that update very quickly; databases usually need updating about once a year, and we haven't done that yet. Stable zones—like slow-flow areas, deep pools—without triggering events, may not change for ten or eight years. But as Chief Huang said, if they match, it proves no change; if they don't match, it doesn't rule out change either."

Wu Zhisu instantly understood, repeatedly saying "Good," then said: "This technical update is good—so theoretically, if they match, even cold cases from over a decade ago would work?"

"Assuming they match, it would mean the diatom community in the drowning zone hasn't changed over these years. But generally, ten years is a threshold, because the diatom ecosystem's stability lasts about twenty years, plus human activity... we could consider sediment diatoms, but that's outside our database scope..." Jiang Yuan gave a brief overview.

"Enough, enough." Wu Zhisu wasn't actually thinking that far ahead—he just wanted to crack a cold case and would be happy.

Huang Qingming smiled and looked at Wu Zhisu, saying: "Rotten corpse, eight years, right?"

"Decent person!" Wu Zhisu repeated.

"Alright, alright. What we agreed on can't change! Decent person!" Huang Qingming shook his hand and repeated it.

Wu Zhisu had thought he'd have to bleed again, but seeing Huang Qingming truly willing to be a decent person, he felt delighted, quickly turned to Jiang Yuan, and asked: "How's it going? That blunt injury?"

Jiang Yuan pointed at the photo and agreed: "Indeed caused by a hammer. However, the victim's bone marrow contained diatoms, so he should have been struck by the hammer but not killed, ultimately drowning. The hammer wasn't found, was it?"

"No. This hammer's shape is too ordinary. Our investigation back then focused mainly on the clothing wrapped around the victim, especially a button—we traced it to a tailor shop, but still got nothing." Wu Zhisu wasn't the direct handler, but saying it still carried regret, showing he truly cared about this case.

Unfortunately, valuing a case helps investigation, but it's not absolute.

Jiang Yuan nodded, pushed the photo and file aside, and said: "Then let's still investigate via diatoms. The body entered the water at Fan Family Village, upstream of Ningtai County—you remember?"

Wu Zhisu thought seriously, then slowly shook his head: "I don't remember. Wait, I'll call Zhang Yan from the First Brigade—he's out on field duty today; if I'd known it was this case, I'd have called him over."

Saying that, he took out his phone to make the call.

The call connected, Wu Zhisu listened to Zhang Yan and Jiang Yuan chat for a while, then suddenly realized: "Wait, you've both confirmed the victim's entry point?"

Jiang Yuan nodded: "Because we matched it, we just checked the database—know where the same diatom community is from, and thus confirmed the entry point."

"Good, good, good..." Wu Zhisu remained pleasant toward Jiang Yuan, turned to look at Huang Qingming, eyes flashing with killing intent: "Isn't this diatom work just done?"

"Decent person!" Huang Qingming reminded Wu Zhisu.

Wu Zhisu angrily pointed at Huang Qingming: "You old..."

"Old Wu, with the entry point, can we solve the case?" Huang Qingming pried Wu Zhisu's hand loose.

Wu Zhisu indeed hesitated.

Indeed, knowing where someone entered the water gives more clues, but doesn't guarantee solving the case.

Huang Qingming softly said: "Our Jiang Yuan sees things through to the end. Now that we know the entry point, we'll look for clues nearby—if we can confirm the victim's identity, great; if not, Jiang Yuan still has forensic anthropology; failing that, there's cranial reconstruction—we can directly restore the victim's appearance in life, then do facial recognition or hand out flyers—this isn't just double or triple insurance, you buying insurance costs nothing, right? Don't you want this insurance?"

"Hmm..." Wu Zhisu admitted he'd been persuaded, only muttering: "Then let's just do cranial reconstruction."

"Three months." Huang Qingming glanced at Wu Zhisu and said lightly: "Doing all this, the Taihe working group cracks fewer than four cases a year."

Wu Zhisu coughed twice: "No matter what comes after, we'll still follow the original plan."

"Mm." Huang Qingming nodded and passed a cigarette to Wu Zhisu.

Wu Zhisu took it, pulled out a lighter, and lit Huang Qingming's first.

On the other side, Wang Chuanxing distributed newly gathered materials to the cold case task force members, and everyone got busy.

After finishing his cigarette, Wu Zhisu's emotions fully relaxed, took a sip of tea, and prepared to have a good chat with Huang Qingming.

At that moment, Tang Jia picked up the materials and said: "I have a police report from Fan Family Village villagers. Wife missing for five years before reporting, requesting divorce. By timing, his wife went missing eight years ago."

"Let me see!" Wu Zhisu instantly excited.

Huang Qingming finished the last puff of his cigarette butt, then softly said behind him: "Decent person!"

(End of chapter)