Chapter 170: Enchanted

Fifty or sixty rough-looking men stared intently at Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan pushed up his flat glasses and continued.

Photoshop is a fascinating software. ωω

Women all love it.

Its applications are broad, mainly because of its high freedom and considerable depth.

The stories that emerge from it are perfectly described as "from beginner to quit."

Ordinary consumers usually only encounter its entertainment side—like retouching photos, altering scenes—spending an afternoon to post on WeChat Moments, half an afternoon to get a leader trending.

Those willing to spend a whole night can graft a celebrity's head onto some strange animal's body.

Or recreate wedding photos so the bride and groom can comfortably pretend they're attending someone else's wedding.

But on the flip side, Photoshop can be brutally effective.

It can be used to forge official seals; if done well, it can easily land you over three years in prison.

It can also be used to fabricate photos for blackmail and extortion; in Shuangfeng, Hunan, it became an industry targeting officials, with far-reaching consequences.

Of course, it can also be used to solve crimes—and infinitely raise the difficulty of solving them.

During the provincial fingerprint battle, Jiang Yuan used Level 4 Qingdao-style fingerprint analysis, combined with Level 3 Chongqing-style fingerprint analysis and image enhancement skills to dominate.

Solving a string of cold homicide cases meant Jiang Yuan's fingerprint identification skills far exceeded the provincial average.

Now, the fingerprints he was encountering exceeded the usual difficulty level of complex fingerprints.

"For complex fingerprints, processing them with Photoshop often yields surprises. Photoshop is PS—its key use in criminal investigation is ensuring image accuracy, with strict rules for modifications."

As Jiang Yuan spoke, most of his focus remained on the software operations.

Practical instruction means practice first, explanation second.

Chen Wenming straightened his back, watched Jiang Yuan's operations for a while, then slowly imitated Cao Keyang beside him, shifting into a reclining posture.

Some things, viewed differently, evoke different emotions and a different sense of gain.

Like Cao Keyang—he originally sat upright, and it felt terribly uncomfortable.

Once he lay down, it became much more comfortable.

Cao Keyang's suppressed emotions were released; at some point, a faint smile appeared on his face.

"Everyone's actually enjoying this," Chen Wenming glanced around at the flat-laying fingerprint technicians and sighed helplessly: "Too advanced a technique greatly dampens everyone's learning enthusiasm."

A fingerprint technician from a district bureau, hearing Chen Wenming, disagreed, staring at the projection: "Comrade Chen, you've got to look at it differently—it becomes interesting."

"What angle?"

"For instance, I never knew fingerprint identification could reach this level—it's like divine skill." The district technician, only slightly younger than Chen Wenming, spoke calmly.

Chen Wenming still shook his head: "Dragon-slaying technique."

Another technician didn't care: "Cool is enough. When my nephew asks what I do all day, I'll finally have something impressive to brag about. I can't keep saying I'm awesome on TV but useless in real life."

Cao Keyang nodded, listening. Internally, he naturally hoped to become such an identification expert—but such words were inappropriate to say in front of colleagues, especially junior superiors.

Not being able to do it yourself, but bragging about a colleague's achievements, was still a kind of joy.

Jiang Yuan was also their colleague.

Chen Wenming knew better than anyone how hard it was to master Jiang Yuan's level of fingerprint identification—PS skills were equally dull and tedious, requiring later mastery of mathematics and related knowledge.

So Chen Wenming sighed again: "We finally scraped together half a day of training, and all we did was watch him look cool."

"There are plenty of training opportunities," another technician whispered, correcting himself, "no—plenty of learning opportunities. That's what real training is."

On the podium, no one paid much attention to the technical details.

If you don't understand something in the first lesson, don't expect to catch up in the second.

But everyone remained deeply interested in the advanced methods and capabilities of fingerprint identification.

So now, whispers grew louder in the audience, more people were chatting quietly, and smiles multiplied.

Seeing everyone around him disagree, Chen Wenming had nothing more to say.

In fact, discussing the cutting-edge capabilities and boundaries of a technique is itself a form of training.

For example, fingerprint technology can now extract prints from clothing, bed sheets, and similar surfaces—so we must inform frontline officers through various means; otherwise, research confined to the lab is useless without frontline officers' implementation.

Similarly, fingerprint collection training is conducted annually at all levels, precisely to reinforce awareness and improve performance among grassroots officers.

DNA's frontier expansion is even clearer. Years ago, DNA identification could only use blood, saliva, and human tissue and semen; many regions only began promoting sweat analysis around 2008, and ten years later, frontline officers' updated understanding was that any surface touched by a suspect could be tested.

Originally, everyone came to this training expecting to learn fingerprint identification, so the first lesson was utterly demoralizing.

But by the second lesson, more and more people began treating it as a cutting-edge lecture—and it became wonderful.

After all, those who usually give cutting-edge lectures are rarely themselves at the cutting edge.

What Jiang Yuan demonstrated today, to these fingerprint technicians, was nothing short of beautiful.

"Alright, after processing it like this, let's run it again," Jiang Yuan said, referring to the processed fingerprint image.

A front-row technician couldn't help laughing: "It doesn't look like anything anymore."

"Actually, it's the exact same image—we can directly prove that. If the suspect's lawyer raises this point, we can conduct a criminal investigation identification… should we do it? It might take about ten minutes…" Jiang Yuan spoke politely, always attentive to any feedback.

The front-row technician waved him off: "Don't mind me—just follow your own curriculum."

Jiang Yuan didn't really have a formal curriculum, but seeing this technician wasn't particularly interested, he continued: "Then I'll proceed. Now, we just need to re-mark the feature points. This time, we'll still select a smaller area…"

"My suggestion for choosing the specific area is to judge based on the fingerprint pattern."

"We've already uncovered two cases with two sets of fingerprints to reference—here, we can actually discern something about his hand usage habits."

"Hmm, here we can apply a bit of footprint analysis thinking…"

Jiang Yuan mentioned it briefly and didn't elaborate. Today's lecture was on fingerprint identification—best not to stray too far.

Chen Wenming involuntarily sat up straight.

He himself had often used footprint analysis thinking in his fingerprint work.

It was a natural choice: humans have ten fingers—normal people—and in usage, there are always habitual actions, different techniques, preferences for left or right hand, single or double fingers, favoring index and middle fingers, or middle and ring fingers, and so on.

Unlike footprint analysis, however, fingerprint usage habits have no standardized rules.

Everyone figures it out on their own.

Chen Wenming had also figured it out, but rarely had the chance to apply it.

Now, he wanted to hear Jiang Yuan's take.

Even if dragon-slaying techniques have no dragons left to kill, absorbing their essence would surely make slaughtering cattle and sheep far more effective.

But Jiang Yuan did not expand on the footprint-thinking approach to fingerprints.

Because the fingerprint feature points had already been marked, sending them to the fingerprint database now quickly yielded new results.

"Look, after processing like this, comparing with existing fingerprints becomes easier—it's a value-based system; after PS processing, its assigned values clearly increase…"

Jiang Yuan began explaining the key points.

Below, the fingerprint technicians were already impatient; someone even shouted: "Call first, call first!"

"I'm dialing now," Jiang Yuan pulled out his phone from under the table and added, "No rush—it's in prison."

The call connected; Jiang Yuan reported the situation again, and the opposing criminal investigation team captain naturally expressed heartfelt thanks.

Even though the suspect was in prison, the case was already solved.

Moreover, the suspect would still face prosecution and additional sentencing, saving time and effort on apprehension.

Jiang Yuan suggested digging deeper into other cases, then hung up.

The audience of fingerprint technicians listened, entranced.

Especially the final part—it felt like a dream.

Normally, a criminal investigation team captain, upon receiving advice, would chew it up and spit it out along with the advisor.

Jiang Yuan was somewhat accustomed to the courtesy of out-of-town team captains, but seeing everyone's expressions, he quickly switched to a serious tone: "Let's continue the lesson…"

Vibrate…

His phone buzzed again.

Jiang Yuan glanced at it and quickly explained: "It's Miaohé County. I don't know if there's an emergency—I'll take it."

Saying that, Jiang Yuan answered the call.

From the earpiece, the Miaohé County criminal investigation team captain's voice boomed: "Jiang Yuan, thank you so much—the suspect's been caught."

"That's wonderful—congratulations."

"Congratulations to us both. This case owes everything to you—it brought a dead case back to life."

"Has the suspect confessed?"

"Not yet, but soon—we found some evidence at his home. Even without a confession, we're fine. Confession is just a matter of time." The Miaohé County captain chatted for a while before hanging up.

Turning back, every fingerprint technician in the room had eyes gleaming with light.

Long-dormant passion surged anew—everyone fantasized about being the one making the call.