Chapter 1368: Casting the Net

Liu Jinghui has been selling…… deduction outside for years, seen all kinds of clients. Even if he felt Qiangmin Huang's request was a bit rude, he faced it with a smile, merely proposing higher conditions and prices.

Liu Jinghui: "To establish certainty, first, expanding the scope is indispensable. You think about it: the crime scene is in Ningtai County, one male victim is from Qinghe City, the car was abandoned in Anwan City—there's reason to suspect the killer has cross-provincial crime tendencies. The possibility of fleeing to commit crimes is very high. We've been searching old cases for half a day now; frankly, the killer's modus operandi is quite conspicuous. If he committed many crimes, we should have found him by now."

"In Ningtai County, we're already examining case files from 15 years ago. The Qinghe City Bureau has also organized a team to look into it. How much further do you think we need to expand?" Huang Qiangmin pressed.

Liu Jinghui probed Huang Qiangmin with his gaze, gauging his tolerance, his words like a fine muscle needle, piercing bit by bit into Huang's buttock: "For cases from 15 years ago, assuming the killer had sufficient experience—whether he jumped levels or not—normally we'd go back another year… better yet, two years. I still think it's necessary."

Liu Jinghui: "Those who pull taxi robbery cases, especially robbery-murder, usually operate for one or two years. Initially they don't take it seriously, they make some money; later they slightly upgrade, expenses and desires rise, they go bigger, then superiors start paying attention, form task forces to track vehicles, phones, and various assets, start inquiring everywhere—whether individual or gang, they should vanish."

Modern police rely on various technical means—surveillance, phones, labs. But 15 or even 20 years ago, there were no surveillance cameras, no ubiquitous phones, no trace evidence; the only thing to rely on was people.

Either the police were strong enough, or they needed eyewitnesses, or they had to rely on special intelligence—practically, just asking around in the jianghu.

Likewise, back then the bandits had no point-to-point channels like Zhuan Zhuan or Xianyu, obviously lacked the ability to sell goods—if they had, why choose robbery, the most technically devoid work? So those bandits also heavily relied on various fencing channels.

So when a case begins to injure or kill, when criminal investigators deeply understand all the channels, the bandits' fencing channels are basically blocked; what remains is basically either capture or flight.

Huang Qiangmin is an old criminal investigator from that era; he also spent years in dance halls interrogating people. Hearing Liu Jinghui's words, though he felt a sting, he nodded: "Going back two years is reasonable. But for 15 or 17 years ago, I don't recall such cases in Ningtai."

Liu Jinghui: "What about Qinghe City?"

Huang Qiangmin: "Probably not either. But we should ask—back then there were no highways to the city; other counties might have had them, I'm not sure."

Seeing Huang Qiangmin counter with his "living fossil" experience, Liu Jinghui added pressure: "What if it's someone released after serving their sentence?"

Huang Qiangmin frowned slightly: "I've been in Ningtai County for 30 years—I have no impression of this, especially his rope-tying method. If similar existed, I'd surely remember. Besides, if he was imprisoned 15 years ago, never mind anything else—back then, where in Ningtai County would there be taxis?"

"His rope-tying method resembles that of spearmen," Liu Jinghui said.

Huang Qiangmin grunted: "That doesn't prove anything—many people retire yearly, those around them can learn."

Liu Jinghui sensed Huang Qiangmin didn't want to stretch the timeline too far, but still tried pushing further: "Actually, even considering released prisoners, just reviewing files, looking for similar crime patterns, rope-tying methods—it wouldn't take much time; treat it as a routine case linkage."

"Then how do we account for fleeing criminals?" Huang Qiangmin knew Liu Jinghui's goal; at this point he had him cornered.

Liu Jinghui pushed, found he couldn't move him, so simply tickled Huang Qiangmin: "Should we count it or not? Believe the killer only struck in Ningtai, or only in Ningtai County and Anwan City, then vanished?"

"Ah…… this way it can't be done." Huang Qiangmin sighed. In criminal cases, fleeing to commit crimes is extremely difficult to handle.

Even manhunts are conducted place by place. Or like economic cases—different places have different victims and suspects, investigation and evidence collection may run all over, but at least it's targeted.

If criminal cases were only at the investigation level, we'd have to fly all over the world—this difficulty would be too high. Mainly, many places visited yield nothing—pure wasted runs; the more places, the less feasible—let alone funding, leaders wouldn't accept it first.

"Indeed quite difficult. Or…… wait and see what Jiang Yuan says when he returns." Liu Jinghui still had expectations for the dragon.

Some city walls are tall and thick—who knows how many civil laborer days and nights of plastering went into them. Attacking with ordinary methods would surely be a tough siege, but if there's a dragon, it's different.

The two exchanged glances, reached consensus, fell silent, each attending to their own tasks, peacefully waiting for Jiang Yuan to bring back more resources.

Six hours later, Jiang Yuan, having examined the remains of both deceased, returned to the meeting room.

Huang Qiangmin and Liu Jinghui pushed forward their teacups in unison and asked in unison: "How is it?"

"See what you want—identities of the two victims are already confirmed, DNA report should be out; if no call came, it means no accident?" Jiang Yuan sat down wearily, poured himself tea, took two sips.

"DNA already confirmed identities." Huang Qiangmin answered, then asked: "What about your autopsy results?"

"I wrote the autopsy report, but it doesn't differ much from a standard autopsy; the bones revealed little extra information." Jiang Yuan's answer made Huang Qiangmin's heart sink slightly.

"Then what you just said……" Huang Qiangmin hurriedly asked.

Jiang Yuan glanced at Liu Jinghui, said: "No more information is also information, right?"

"Of course." Liu Jinghui replied naturally.

At this moment, Jiang Yuan winked at him.

Instantly, Liu Jinghui suddenly grasped Jiang Yuan's meaning—this was clearly the dragon's breath exhaled as it tilted downward from the sky.

"Ningtai County isn't this gang's starting point?" Liu Jinghui said this after at least three or four prior inferences.

Jiang Yuan gave him firm support, declaring: "Ningtai County couldn't breed such river-and-sea bandits, nor could Qinghe City."

Speaking, Jiang Yuan turned to Huang Qiangmin: "We've already back-checked cold cases in Ningtai County and Qinghe City—murder cases traced back to 30 years ago, absolutely no killer with the same method. Their method is clean, and it's absolutely not their first time doing this."

"Could it be a leapfrog crime upgrade?" Liu Jinghui quickly explained his earlier theory to Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan decisively said: "Impossible—the killer definitely killed before. They drove to the riverbank to kill, tied people to make killing easier, burned the car to destroy corpses and erase traces. Moreover, the killing motion was clean and swift; without killing experience, never having faced resistance or tried digging a pit, how could they choose this method? They chose nearly the most labor-saving means."

As everyone knows, digging graves to bury people is very tiring and time-consuming, but ordinary people may not realize that when facing death threats, resistance can be extremely fierce; also, they may not have seen that ordinary people under strong threat but not death tend to easily compromise.

A killer who can skillfully wield the gap between threat and death threat to profit is like a merchant adept at exploiting information gaps—needs vision and means, but also experience and practice to apply purely.

Liu Jinghui understood this, but he lacked sufficient information; without Jiang Yuan, he might have to dig through piles of old documents for days, as he used to, possibly still not getting answers—otherwise he wouldn't rely on Jiang Yuan daily for case work.

Of course, Jiang Yuan also couldn't easily conclude, but he knew Ningtai County and Qinghe City too well. Ningtai County aside, he had early on cleared round after round of cold cases; for somewhat larger cases, especially the eight major priority types, Jiang Yuan had them memorized; same within Qinghe City's jurisdiction—not to mention cases sent by county bureaus, just from the Qinghe Bureau's "Cold Case Tough Year" initiative, he had expended great effort and time searching all case types.

Besides, for robbery and homicide cases, Jiang Yuan—whether solved or not—had definitely scanned basic information once. Not to say criminal investigators must be localized, but the deeper they cultivate locally, the more confident they face cold cases, old cases, and linked cases.

"If so, we need to cast a wider net." Liu Jinghui said, looking at Huang Qiangmin.

Jiang Yuan also wore a calm expression as he looked down on Huang Qiangmin.

"Damn!" Huang Qiangmin, too familiar with this script, had just been continuously prodded by Liu Jinghui's preventive needles; with no luck left, he spoke: "Xu Taining, right?"

Having cast the wide net, what else could he say? Waiting further, he could only wait for Jiang Yuan to say that word.

Jiang Yuan and Liu Jinghui nodded in unison, showing expressions of "even a child could be taught."

"Scope? Where should the wide net reach?" Huang Qiangmin asked resentfully—these years he'd saved some assets, couldn't just spend them all.

Jiang Yuan, understanding, took the map, traced around Shannan Province's range, drew a circle, then asked Liu Jinghui: "You add?"

"I think we can bias northward—after all, they ran to Pingzhou, so they're surely familiar here; otherwise heading to the southwest port, vehicle theft there is just as severe." Saying this, Liu Jinghui drew another half-ellipse on Jiang Yuan's circle.

Huang Qiangmin looked at this circle-within-a-circle covering half the map and said: "You might as well sell me."

"We can start from our familiar cities." Jiang Yuan had thought of this en route: "We only have this many people—can't really sweep such a large area. I think we can make a few calls, ask familiar county criminal teams to help gather intel; we just need clues, net mesh needn't be too fine—as long as we catch fish, it's success."

Huang Qiangmin's expression instantly lit up; he thought: Still, Jiang Yuan knows how to care for people.

His thinking also opened up; he nodded repeatedly: "This works—if we just contact familiar counties, I think we don't need to rush to spend our savings; here, many county criminal teams want to build friendly relations with us; some counties promised…… but didn't fulfill—this is good; if we ask them to cooperate, they'll surely agree!"

Liu Jinghui said considerately for Huang Qiangmin: "Let Jiang Yuan make the call—should be easier to talk."

"Good good good, still Chief Liu—this reasoning is done especially well." Huang Qiangmin immediately gave a thumbs-up.

Jiang Yuan naturally wouldn't refuse—this case is already Ningtai County's—he immediately summoned Wang Chuansheng, said: "List the counties we've handled cases in, you sort them, write down the phone numbers of the local officials in charge, I'll make the calls."