Chapter 167: Practical Application

Ningtai County Bureau was unusually quiet.

By six in the afternoon, a large number of men and women wearing glossy long pants had merged into the rush-hour traffic.

There were no pickpockets on the buses; they simply drove quietly, carrying the long-pants crowd and those in normal shorts toward home.

Jiang Yuan rode a dull, scooter-style motorcycle, like a middle-aged man, surging out of the parking lot and blending into the crowd, as if an ordinary medium-to-large social animal heading home.

Today was another day where he solved only a minor cold case.

There was a slight sense of satisfaction, but not much.

It was like eating hot pot with clear broth and only getting eight-tenths full.

It was tasty, but something always felt missing.

In short, his appetite had grown—cases that sentenced people to just two or three years no longer tasted right.

Other relevant departments likely felt the same. For instance, officers at the case handling center would delay interrogations of such suspects, and prosecutors went through the motions.

Officers at all levels no longer showed the urgency they once had when cracking homicide cold cases; sometimes they even dragged their feet and couldn't be found.

Fortunately, Jiang Yuan was a technician; otherwise, all the tedious case work would have driven him mad.

For several days in a row, the Criminal Investigation Unit maintained this slow, unhurried pace.

Like a water buffalo with no work to do, it submerged its body in water, puffing out air—gulping, gulping—only breathing.

Jiang Yuan wanted to solve another homicide cold case, but after finding two fingerprints and comparing them for three days without a match, he was at a loss.

Amid the peace, Jiang Yuan felt as if he had returned to the state he was in when he first joined the Criminal Investigation Unit—reading novels, watering pothos.

The bureau, noticing everyone's idle state, quickly pulled out several planned projects.

First on the list was fingerprint skills training.

Each county and district sent one latent print examiner, who arrived on time at Qinghe City Bureau, only to be dumped into a conference room with a textbook each and told to study.

In a disciplined force, if leadership wanted to, they could make training extremely serious.

Ningtai County sent two people: Jiang Yuan and Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong was a latent print examiner who constantly attended training—though his growth was slow and limited, this was the only way he could barely maintain his LV0. level and keep Ningtai County's fingerprint work functional.

The generation of latent print examiners like Yan Ge rarely attended training anymore. Employees over thirty-five were in their prime, meaning from that point on, their skills and abilities were essentially fixed—only their salary would rise.

Training programs disliked these uncooperative old hands; everyone agreed: send and receive only the young.

Jiang Yuan participated in the fingerprint skills training as an instructor.

In fact, the main reason for this fingerprint skills training was Jiang Yuan himself.

Training requires a teacher.

In the past, Qinghe City Bureau had hired external fingerprint experts for similar training. Though the cost wasn't high, finding someone was never easy.

These days, information transparency had increased, and the pyramid structure of experts had become more pronounced.

Low-level experts didn't want to embarrass themselves by appearing publicly, while high-level experts were overwhelmed with requests.

Qinghe City was merely a prefectural-level city in Shannan Province, obscure among cities, with limited funding, and the city bureau's training wasn't limited to fingerprints alone.

Over the years, Qinghe City had maintained only the bare minimum of fingerprint training, mostly focused on fingerprint collection.

The foundation of fingerprint matching is fingerprint collection: each county and township collects a certain number annually. Though seemingly useless, this indirectly stabilized public security.

However, poor quality in fingerprint collection had long been a persistent problem.

Qinghe City Bureau's training focused primarily on this issue.

The training outline Jiang Yuan received was the same.

Sitting in the latent print office at the city bureau, Jiang Yuan stared at the outline in silence.

How to improve fingerprint collection quality… this was more a management issue than a technical one.

"The textbook is outdated—we haven't had time to replace it. You don't have to follow it," said Cao Keyang from Qinghe City Bureau, speaking cautiously.

During the fingerprint campaign, they cracked ten homicide cold cases at once—a record that would make any region proud.

Other criminal investigators could comfort themselves by saying they were in different specialties, but Cao Keyang, also a latent print examiner, had no such emotional outlet.

Though Jiang Yuan was young and from a county, to Cao Keyang, Jiang Yuan mattered more than any expert sent from the provincial level.

Because Jiang Yuan was a local officer; given current mobility among officially employed officers, Jiang Yuan might spend his entire career in Ningtai or Qinghe City.

They'd have to work together for years to come.

Jiang Yuan hadn't thought that far ahead. Seeing Cao Keyang's attitude, he flipped through the textbook and asked tentatively: "So if we don't follow the textbook, can I teach whatever I want?"

"Our main focus is still fingerprints, and everyone here is a latent print examiner," Cao Keyang quickly set boundaries, fearing Jiang Yuan might stray too far.

Jiang Yuan looked even more confused: "Then… do you have other textbooks?"

Cao Keyang hesitated for two seconds: "The only available textbooks are the ones on the market… why don't you just teach freely? Say whatever comes to mind."

Here, Cao Keyang actually grew curious.

Honestly, he was eager to hear what a fingerprint Second-Class Merit examiner—or even a forensic pathologist—had to say. Just speaking freely might reveal deeper insights and thought processes.

"Teach freely, huh?" Jiang Yuan wasn't nervous. He thought for a moment and said: "Then I'll teach fingerprint Shizhan."

The skill he'd acquired was inherently practical, and this was precisely what he was most familiar with in his work.

" Shizhan is good," Cao Keyang nodded eagerly. "Can I post this on our official WeChat account? The city bureau gave us a slot to publish an article."

Jiang Yuan said, "Fine."

Cao Keyang confirmed again: "Which aspect of Shizhan? Current cases? Cold cases? Or specific crime scenes…"

"Cold cases. Current cases are hard to find on-site," Jiang Yuan replied after thinking.

Cao Keyang nodded again and quickly sent a message.

At this point, he still had no idea what Jiang Yuan had just meant.

The next day.

Jiang Yuan arrived at the city bureau's small lecture hall.

In China, ministries and provincial departments don't handle cases—they're purely administrative.

City bureaus fall into two types: one handles cases, a recent trend aligning with the policy of deploying police resources downward; but many city bureaus still don't handle specific cases.

Like Qinghe City Bureau.

Cases occurring within Qinghe City's jurisdiction are handled by district and county bureaus.

If you're not practical, you must be theoretical.

Administrative bureaus like Qinghe City Bureau were quite active in organizing training.

The bureau even built a dedicated small lecture hall, like a mini-tiered classroom, equipped with teaching facilities, suitable for meetings and parties.

Jiang Yuan was led to the lectern and seated. Cao Keyang stepped forward and asked: "Should we use a PowerPoint?"

"Just project the computer screen," Jiang Yuan said, placing his own laptop on the table.

This laptop was an old high-performance model issued by the Criminal Investigation Unit.

Cao Keyang helped connect the cables, then stepped aside.

The small lecture hall already held about forty people: some from county bureaus, some from district bureaus, some from the city bureau's own latent print team, and even regular police officers from certain areas had been sent for training.

In fact, training regular police officers was the core focus of the city bureau's program. Many officers from police stations handled large volumes of fingerprint collection, yet before taking this role, some only knew how to lift prints with tape.

Jiang Yuan noticed the unusually large crowd and murmured: "Are there non-specialists here?"

Cao Keyang understood his meaning: "It's fine. There are several sessions. Teaching Shizhan is perfect—it'll show other officers what practical latent print work looks like."

Cao Keyang imagined Jiang Yuan presenting his own Shizhan cases.

He was therefore very interested.

Every fingerprint examiner dreamed of one day matching a homicide cold case.

Even Wang Zhong, with his LV0. level, scanned databases all day long, hoping for exactly that. He knew his ability was insufficient, so he relied on database scanning.

For examiners, someone like Jiang Yuan—who had actually matched a homicide cold case by digging deep into the database—was the very embodiment of their professional dream.

If this profession had a dream, it could only be this.

Jiang Yuan was already seated at the lectern, so he couldn't change his plan. After Cao Keyang left, he cleared his throat and said: "Let's begin."

The audience clapped politely.

Jiang Yuan smiled, adjusted the microphone, and looked at the screen: "Since this is my first lecture, today I'd like to start with a Shizhan —let's do one together and discuss the problems we encounter along the way."

He turned on the software and intranet, adding: "I think fingerprint matching is like solving math problems. Let's pick a typical problem to try…"

As he spoke, he selected a fingerprint.

Experienced latent print examiners now realized: was this guy going to match a fingerprint live?

Cao Keyang was utterly baffled: Didn't we say " Shizhanhua "?

" Shizhanhua " and " Shizhan " differ by just one character—but their meanings are worlds apart.

And what if you match it wrong on the spot?

What if the fingerprint isn't even in the database?

Have you ever considered that?

As Cao Keyang screamed silently inside, Jiang Yuan spoke calmly:

"First, let me explain fingerprint selection techniques—why I chose this one. First, it's moderately difficult. If it were completely easy, we wouldn't even consider it—it'd almost certainly have no match in the database…"

"Second, choosing a fingerprint that pushes you to your limit is ideal—it helps you improve and maximizes the chance of a match."

Jiang Yuan wasn't lying. Since acquiring his fingerprint skill, he'd clearly felt his proficiency rising, though far slower than the system's pace. But if he persisted for years, he'd surely gain something.

What he found most useful was pushing himself to the limit in every fingerprint match.

The officers in the lecture hall remained expressionless—after all, words alone held little excitement.

Then Jiang Yuan began marking feature points.

"Let's do one now," he said, casually marking over a dozen feature points in just one or two minutes.

Inside the lecture hall, the earlier murmurs had long vanished.