Chapter 251

Saturday.

Morning.

The egg-stuffed pancake stall outside the county bureau was open as usual. A steady stream of office workers lined up, forming a queue long enough to fill two prisoner vans.

Jiang Yuan was waiting at the back of the line.

The bureau's own cafeteria actually had snack stalls selling daily-changing items like soy milk, fried dough sticks, and tofu pudding, while more complex dishes like spicy pepper soup, clay-pot porridge, and meat buns rotated frequently.

But this egg-stuffed pancake stall outside the bureau gate was clearly far superior to the ones inside the village.

Jiang Yuan treated the old woman's technique as entertainment—just to clear his mind.

Her movements were so skilled they seemed dazzling.

Egg-stuffed pancakes and jianbing guozi were entirely different crafts.

Making jianbing guozi was a trade you could try after three days of practice.

Egg-stuffed pancakes required at least three weeks of training.

Leaving aside the special dough-kneading technique, the on-site execution alone was extremely difficult: you had to place the dough disc on the griddle until its edges inflated like a balloon, then quickly slit the skin with chopsticks and pour a raw egg into the center before the heat escaped—ensuring even distribution...

Jiang Yuan found it healing.

If making jianbing guozi was like matching fingerprints, making egg-stuffed pancakes was like performing an autopsy.

Fingerprint analysis operates on a flat plane; an autopsy is a complex, three-dimensional interplay of internal and external factors. But sometimes, greater difficulty and complexity don't necessarily lead to better case resolution.

Take the case Wan Baoming requested: the autopsy findings could be numerous and detailed, but they held little value for solving the crime.

Fingerprints, by contrast, could play a much larger role due to multiple eyewitnesses.

"Young man, double egg, nothing stuffed inside, slightly spicy?" The pancake woman looked up at Jiang Yuan, clearly remembering him.

"Yes, thank you." Jiang Yuan smiled and scanned the payment code.

"Everyone comes here to watch my skills," the woman said, but her hands moved swiftly—two eggs cracked into a bowl, stirred vigorously while the dough inflated, then sliced and flipped—double the egg was neatly packed into the pancake.

With another pull and flick, she flipped the pancake; the golden egg yolk spread softly and evenly across every inch, slowly solidifying.

Jiang Yuan pulled out his own lunchbox and extended it forward, letting the woman place the pancake inside.

This act stood out sharply among the rough, male-dominated detectives outside the station, drawing many glances.

But Jiang Yuan didn't care—he'd already opened the big gun; why fear standing out?

Back in his office, Jiang Yuan reached beneath his desk beside the Xuande censer and pulled out a tiny barbecue grill. He lit it with flammable charcoal used for burning paper, then took two sausages from another lunchbox and placed them on the grill to heat.

When the sausages began to sizzle and release oil, he took out tomato slices and lettuce leaves from home, wrapping the lettuce around the tomato and sausage, then wrapping the egg-stuffed pancake in lettuce, inserting a few pickled cucumber slices in the middle—his hybrid East-West super-breakfast was complete.

Jiang Yuan lifted the egg-stuffed pancake with one hand and devoured it greedily.

For him, this was a ritualistic breakfast: eating this much meant today he'd aim to deliver a major breakthrough.

Like sentencing a murderer.

Click.

Wu Jun unlocked the door, stepped inside, smelled the smoke, and immediately locked it behind him.

Seeing Jiang Yuan using the barbecue grill, he sighed in relief: "I thought you'd found another corpse."

"Doing a fingerprint for Changyang City's Forensic Center," Jiang Yuan said, chewing happily.

The advantage of mastering core skills at work is that you can make your environment extremely comfortable. With a little finesse, you can even make it deeply satisfying.

The best example is the office Dajie in state-owned enterprises—familiar with internal affairs, fluent in all procedures, aware of secrets, never offending current leadership, and with two close friends—her workdays are more comfortable than being at home.

If she also has some behind-the-scenes connections, she can casually visit colleagues, and the joy she gains at work exceeds what the village aunties get.

Of course, where there's ease, there's also burden. Weak units rely on young, ambitious officers and newly promoted junior leaders to do the work. Strong units depend on seconded personnel pushing forward.

In the criminal investigation team, forensic doctors are the top of the easy-living tier. But Wu Jun never cared much for food and drink—he'd been promoted to the underworld.

He still feels the same—he has no interest in Jiang Yuan's pancake. In the past, Jiang Yuan used to offer him some, but Wu Jun always showed indifference.

But when it came to Changyang City's Forensic Center, Wu Jun snorted: "They've got it coming."

"Do we have a grudge against them?" Jiang Yuan was slightly surprised.

Wu Jun laughed: "We're the Forensic Squad of the Ningtai County Criminal Investigation Team. They're the Changyang City Center for Criminal Science and Technology—under their jurisdiction are the field investigation and trace evidence teams, and their forensic doctors can reach deputy division level. What grounds do we have to hold a grudge?"

Wu Jun had struggled for years to get his deputy section chief promotion—only because the team took pity on old comrades. But in the provincial capital, that's nothing special—it's a resource everyone gets.

Jiang Yuan began to understand: "So this time it's a lucky accident. I saw Huang's chat with Wan Baoming—he must've demanded a heavy price."

Wu Jun glanced at Jiang Yuan: "When has Huang ever been easygoing?"

"Hmm, I thought he was usually quite reasonable."

"Back then, you were probably the bird picking fleas off the crocodile's teeth." Wu Jun paused, then added: "Now you're part of the teeth themselves."

Jiang Yuan wasn't sure if this counted as growth.

"Do the fingerprint well. Director Wan isn't relying solely on this one result to let Huang chew meat." Wu Jun paused. "Changyang has too many cases, and even more cold cases. If you break through here, they'd be willing to chop their own bones into soup for you."

Only in counties with exceptionally fierce folk customs do homicide numbers reach double digits.

But for a provincial capital, a single district's homicide count equals two such fierce counties.

This is just for current cases. Ten years ago—especially twenty years ago—the number of homicides and major crimes was several times higher.

The solved cases were also several times higher, but the unsolved cold cases were multiplied even more.

Teams with responsibility and capability would tackle them when they had time; those without means just left them be—or waited for annual campaigns organized by ministries and provincial bureaus to attempt resolution.

Either way, for mid- and lower-level detectives, life was simple: solving more cases and handling more business was the most important thing.

Only those on the front lines knew how rare Jiang Yuan was—such a case-solving prodigy under fixed budgets and resources.

Figures like Xu Taining were lifelines for higher-ups—the last hope when deadlines loomed.

By contrast, senior detectives like Liu Jinghui were more popular locally.

After all, the common saying goes: if money's no object, no case is unsolvable.

Jiang Yuan finished his pancake, turned on his computer, and began processing yesterday's fingerprint.

He'd spent all day yesterday processing the fingerprint image on his own computer.

Different people used different methods for fingerprints.

After the fingerprint campaign, Jiang Yuan had clearly defined his skill development path: image enhancement combined with fingerprint pattern analysis.

In pure fingerprint matching ability, his Level 4 skill wasn't the strongest—he might still fail on fingerprints others couldn't extract. But once he had a specialty, his breakthrough potential became immense.

Moreover, image enhancement was especially suited for fragmented fingerprints.

Fingerprints lifted from textiles like clothing were essentially fingerprints that had undergone secondary processing.

If a fingerprint was taken from a smooth surface like metal or glass, its clarity depended only on the original conditions.

A fingerprint, if taken from a smooth surface like metal or glass, depends solely on the conditions at the time it was left.

The surface of textiles was uneven—essentially granular. The fingerprint was first imprinted onto the textile's granules, then extracted.

Granules are round.

So fingerprints left on textiles were impressions pressed onto granules, then extracted again.

The two presses would inevitably produce different surfaces.

Thus, fingerprints left on textiles result from pressure applied to particles; the extracted fingerprint is a secondary impression obtained through extraction.

For complete fingerprints, this didn't matter much. But for fragmented ones, you had to find ways to recover something.

Yesterday, Jiang Yuan spent the entire day trying to reconstruct the granular fingerprint, treating each fiber granule as a unit to match the pattern.

This level of image enhancement was extremely advanced—even professional image specialists rarely attempted it.

All one could say: the killer was damned!

He'd run into Jiang Yuan, whose fury was rising.

Jiang Yuan brewed tea and began running the fingerprint analysis on his office's three-year-old high-end computer.

One pass, adjust the image, another pass.

Time slipped away in the endless cycles.

When Jiang Yuan finally emerged from his flow state, it was already 1 p. . his stomach growled.

One super egg pancake lasted barely an hour and a half.

"Going for lunch?" Wu Jun asked as Jiang Yuan paused.

"I brought my own. I'll reheat it later." Jiang Yuan had brought his father's hand-pulled rice—his neighbor Uncle Thirteen had just slaughtered a sheep and sent over a piece of lamb loin and a leg. This food tasted best fresh, but reheated it had its own flavor, perfect with a few pickled vegetables—ideal for office workers' lunch.

"I'm going to eat first," Wu Jun said, standing up and leaving.

"I brought my meal. I'll reheat it later." Jiang Yuan brought hand-held rice made by his father; the neighbor Thirteenth Uncle had just slaughtered a sheep and sent over a piece of lamb jerky and a leg to Jiang Yuan's home. This food tastes best eaten fresh, but reheated it has its own flavor—paired with a few pickled vegetables, it's delicious and perfect as a lunch for working people.

By mid-afternoon, Wu Jun slowly returned to the office and said: "Director Wan is here. Director Huang and Director Zhang are receiving him."

Director Zhang was the deputy director in charge of criminal investigation—Huang Qiangmin's direct superior. Judging by the situation, Director Zhang likely wanted to carve off another piece from the meat Huang had torn.

In highbrow terms, this was essentially a transfer payment.

Jiang Yuan didn't care—he just asked: "What did Huang say?"

"Huang asked if you're making progress. If you're not, he wants a deposit to delay things. If you are, don't submit yet—double-check everything and call him first." Wu Jun made it perfectly clear.

Jiang Yuan replied casually: "Good, I've almost got it."

He pulled out his phone and dialed Huang Qiangmin, taking a sip of water.

Huang Qiangmin answered after a pause, his voice far calmer than usual: "Hello, Jiang Yuan. Making progress?"

"Yes. But for a case like this, it's best to verify the fingerprint after arresting the suspect, to avoid errors."

"Haha, I know. Don't rush to submit. Wait a bit, wait a bit." Huang Qiangmin's voice brimmed with joy.

"Shunli, but for cases like this, it's best to verify the fingerprints after catching the suspect, to avoid mistakes," Jiang Yuan said.

"Haha, I get it. Don't rush to submit it, wait a moment, wait a moment," Huang Qiang's voice brimmed with joy.