Chapter 195

The sixth day.

Jiang Yuan followed Wang Lan, taking Wang Zhong along as the driver, methodically visiting the First and Second People's Hospitals of Qinghe City in sequence.

At this stage, the case had become nothing but painstaking, slow work.

Jiang Yuan yawned out of boredom.

Wang Lan was slightly affected by Jiang Yuan's yawns; she couldn't bring herself to openly yawn and show her gums, so she covered her mouth with her washed-out pale hand—and soon, she too was yawning constantly.

Wang Zhong, driving, felt himself being dragged into it; he yawned twice and quickly said, "Forensic Jiang, isn't this your first time participating in a manhunt?"

"Uh… I guess so. I haven't handled many cases." Jiang Yuan couldn't quite recall.

In truth, he'd handled far more cases than Wang Zhong had in all his years combined.

Wang Zhong laughed. "Back in the day, we used to run all over the place. Old cops always said cases are chased down—you end up running your legs off."

"I've never encountered a case where we go hospital by hospital like this," Jiang Yuan shook his head. At every hospital, they had to find the radiology department and request access to their X-rays.

Some hospitals were better—they could show the actual films directly; others required filling out forms through medical administration before even showing partial or incomplete X-rays.

Fortunately, both No. 2 and No. 4 had confirmed age and gender; by slightly expanding the age range of the former and filtering back ten years, then cross-referencing missing persons lists, the number of X-rays to review wouldn't be excessive.

Of course, to examine No. 4's dental images, they might have to make a separate trip to a dental clinic—by the end of the day, they'd only covered two hospitals.

Fortunately, Qinghe City didn't have many hospitals; it felt like they'd finish soon.

The problem was, if they still found no matching X-rays after finishing, the three might have to go to Changyang City, where hospitals were far more numerous—and the workload would skyrocket.

Under this mix of worry and dread…

At the next hospital in Qinghe City's Qianjin District, Jiang Yuan unexpectedly spotted an X-ray matching No. 2.

"This is it." Finding the person, Jiang Yuan's emotions were oddly flat—not the wild elation or intense excitement he'd imagined.

Perhaps precisely because it was found, once certainty arrived, the panic born of uncertainty lost all its flavor.

"Zhu Jin. Male. From Zhujiazhuang… vanished six years ago." Wang Zhong read the hospital report, then searched the internal network.

Due to his temporary transfer to the special task force, Wang Zhong's phone had been granted provincial-level access; in moments, he pulled up the full case file.

"This guy's a peasant from Zhujiazhuang. If he's still alive, he'd be in his early forties. Didn't expect anyone still young enough to farm in the village these days." Wang Zhong, a true youngster, spoke with youthful bluntness.

Wang Lan, also in her early forties, took Wang Zhong's phone and looked it over, then shook her head. "Working in the village doesn't mean farming. Maybe he raised livestock. Once confirmed, I'll call Director Shen."

Jiang Yuan nodded. While Wang Lan made the call, he signaled Wang Zhong to take a statement from the doctor.

The doctor couldn't remember X-rays from six years ago—such a minor surgery as a humerus fracture was long forgotten.

Still, Wang Zhong's mood remained high.

Thus, the identities of three victims—Nos. 1, 2, and 5—were now confirmed. At an average of one victim identified every two days, the pace wasn't slow.

No. 3 should also yield results soon; No. 4 would depend on progress from here.

Just as he thought this, Wang Lan returned beaming.

"We don't need to investigate No. 4 anymore," Wang Lan chirped. "We got the news at noon—the victim's been identified."

"How?" Jiang Yuan was startled.

"Mitochondrial DNA," Wang Lan said, thanked the doctor, pulled the two out the door, then whispered, "Our director went straight to the provincial capital and pushed the provincial DNA lab to prioritize it. Otherwise, we'd still be waiting a week or two in line."

"That's extreme?" Wang Zhong exclaimed.

"Only the provincial lab can do mitochondrial DNA. They're swamped. And our director expanded the comparison range to the entire province. Luckily he did—otherwise, we wouldn't have matched at all…"

The bodies were too decomposed; extracting DNA normally was extremely difficult. For bodies abandoned for years, extraction usually came from bone marrow—but success rates were low, often requiring multiple attempts.

One DNA run took nearly a full day. Unless the lab staff worked overtime, sleepless, they could only manage two runs per day.

So, doing such DNA analysis was extremely time-consuming.

Currently, DNA identification was divided into three types.

The first was the most common autosomal DNA identification; the second was Y-chromosome DNA identification; the third was mitochondrial DNA identification.

Y-chromosome DNA was paternally inherited—fathers, sons, grandfathers, and brothers shared the same Y-chromosome.

Mitochondrial DNA was maternally inherited—grandmothers, mothers, and sisters shared the same mitochondrial DNA.

Y-chromosome DNA identification was frequently used in intra-ethnic criminal investigations. For instance, the Baiyin serial killer was identified by matching his Y-chromosome to his uncle, then tracing back to himself.

The advantage of mitochondrial DNA identification lay in its resilience—it could remain viable even in highly degraded environments. In the Hangzhou wife-murder case, the husband reported his wife missing; eventually, skin tissue and residual organs were washed out of the community septic tank, and mitochondrial DNA confirmed they belonged to his wife, locking in the crime.

DNA and mass spectrometry instruments worked similarly, both drawing curves on paper strips.

If the peaks and troughs matched, it was a match; if not, it wasn't. Contamination from stray peaks had to be processed as well.

Depending on the DNA lab's capacity and the technicians' skill, the subsequent DNA identifications for these bodies would likely take several more days.

The next day.

The special task force held a meeting.

Liu Jinghui looked radiant.

After days of power struggles, Liu Jinghui had gained the upper hand in discourse control.

Today more than ever. Shen Feihong, the Qinghe City Bureau's deputy chief, spoke briefly, then yielded the floor to Liu Jinghui.

As a provincial-level official, Liu Jinghui didn't need the usual preliminaries—he opened the discussion like a man breaking into a one-night stand: "After analysis, we've compiled the victims' profiles into booklets and distributed them to everyone…"

Liu Jinghui opened his own white booklet. "I want to emphasize Nos. 2 and 3."

"No. 2: Zhu Jin, male, from Zhujiazhuang. He vanished at age 35, 1. meters tall. His uniqueness lies in that he stayed home to farm. Zhu Jin leased land from relatives to grow corn—about forty to fifty mu—and he and his wife raised four sows, profiting from piglets."

"From what I've gathered, Zhu Jin gave up working outside because of pig farming. His daily range was narrow—mostly Zhujiazhuang and nearby village markets; he rarely even went to the county town."

"But on the day he vanished, he rode out on a motorcycle. We must consider how far the motorcycle extended his range, and its route could serve as a lead."

Liu Jinghui broke down the case meticulously, like a seasoned nightspot veteran, quickly convincing everyone present.

After briefly detailing other facts, he turned to No. 3.

"Based on Forensic Jiang's analysis, we believe No. 3's occupation required prolonged squatting and heavy lifting. After screening missing persons and matching DNA, we've confirmed: the victim is Yu Jun, male, 38, from Qinghe City. He vanished ten years ago, previously working as a miner at Zifengshan Coal Mine in Qinghe City…"

The meeting room erupted in murmurs.

Ten years missing meant the killer's first murder occurred two years earlier.

The expressions of Qinghe City Bureau's senior officers darkened.

A killer had been operating undetected for a decade. While calling it a failure might be too harsh, claiming the area had excellent public security was now impossible.

But since the killer had roamed across several cities, the embarrassment was shared—making it feel less crushing.

"Next, based on current intelligence, here's our plan…" Liu Jinghui began assigning tasks.

Jiang Yuan listened carefully.

Though he found reasoning unreliable, with sufficient information, pure logical deduction could still yield useful conclusions.

Liu Jinghui kept assigning personnel, organizing tasks down to two-person teams.

Jiang Yuan quickly understood Liu Jinghui's method.

Unable to directly identify the killer from the bodies, Liu Jinghui seemed to want to map out the killer's likely region.

It was a slightly clumsy but highly effective approach.

Given current assumptions, the killer needed a chainsaw or gasoline saw to dismember the bodies—and had possessed such equipment since ten years ago. The number of households or institutions with such tools must be small.

If they could even roughly define the killer's region—even if it covered thousands of households—sending out hundreds of officers would greatly increase the odds of finding him.

In fact, this was the traditional police method. Why did cops dislike small cases? Because solving some small cases theoretically required exactly this kind of work.

As Jiang Yuan listened to Liu Jinghui's assignments, studied the victim profiles in the booklet, then looked up to see Liu Jinghui gesturing wildly over the map, he suddenly felt a powerful urge to draw.

His previously acquired sketching skill, though only "LV2," triggered in him a strong, intuitive sense of drawing.

On the table lay local map books and other materials.

Jiang Yuan bent down, grabbed one, and with his pen, began drawing right there.

He drew the living areas of the victims.

His lines were precise, like sketching. In his mind, it was as if multiple figures were running across the large map.

He marked places they definitely traveled with double shading, possible areas with single lines—just like doing a still-life sketch.

Soon, most of the map turned black and shadowed—but amid the dark and shadows, a long, blank, clean strip appeared.

The result surprised even Jiang Yuan.

Looking closer, the blank area stretched over ten kilometers long and four to five kilometers wide, like a plump white silkworm resting on the map.

The silkworm's head and tail were two towns.

The head was Zhangshan Town, over twenty kilometers from the reservoir; the tail was Lichang Town, over thirty kilometers from the reservoir.

Zhangshan Town belonged to Qinghe City; Lichang Town belonged to Jianjiang City.

"Moved?" The thought flashed through Jiang Yuan's mind.