Chapter 30: Wei

Jiang Yuan first wrote down the cases mentioned by Wei Zhenguo on paper, then searched for each one individually on the computer.

As Wei Zhenguo had said, there were only three cases in total: one involved forest land and was a genuine case of arson, but no fingerprints were recovered; the other two, though they did yield fingerprints, were respectively the burning of a nearly scrap tractor and the burning of an abandoned, unoccupied house.

The fingerprints found at the latter two scenes were extremely poor—partially missing, deformed, and incomplete.

Jiang Yuan guessed that the officers who conducted the on-site investigation were probably local police station officers who hadn’t considered the issue of fire-damaged fingerprints, simply dusted with powder and lifted with tape.

When these fingerprints were sent to the Criminal Science Team’s trace evidence unit, whether or not they received attention, Jiang Yuan’s accurate assessment of Lao Yan and others’ capabilities told him: such fingerprints were beyond their ability to process.

Of course, there was nothing to blame them for. Just as most ordinary people can’t get into top universities, top high schools, or even top elementary schools; if your parents aren’t industry leaders and your family isn’t a prestigious clan, if you yourself can’t become an elite in your field and you don’t have luck so outrageous it feels like a cheat code…

The county bureau’s requirements for technical police officers certainly couldn’t be TV-drama level.

Fingerprints that don’t meet the threshold of major or serious cases won’t attract the attention of expert senior officers.

Cases involving only a few thousand yuan in damages receive only routine handling.

But if these three cases could be linked to the earlier greenhouse arson case, it would be entirely different.

“Please have a seat.” Jiang Yuan returned to his office. Wei Zhenguo followed him in.

As a detective himself, he was also a very busy man, but he still wanted to see Jiang Yuan’s skill—trace evidence, especially fingerprint matching, was the most familiar technical area to regular police officers; they could routinely compare fingerprints on cards without issue.

Jiang Yuan sat up straight, ready to examine these fingerprints carefully.

He first downloaded the fingerprint from the tractor-burning case and stared at the image, sinking into thought.

The moment he saw this fingerprint, Jiang Yuan felt a sense of familiarity.

Jiang Yuan had spent a week poring over the greenhouse arson case’s fingerprints; now, seeing this newly downloaded one, images immediately surfaced in his mind.

The images weren’t identical, but there was clear similarity—considering deformation and fire-and-sun exposure factors, Wei Zhenguo’s earlier claim might very well be correct.

Both fingerprints had missing parts; proving they were from the same person would be difficult, and merging them into one single fingerprint was an extremely difficult operation.

But compared to the Wensheng arson case, the tractor-burning case had collected three fingerprints at the point of origin, all with higher completeness than those from the Wensheng case.

Jiang Yuan shook his head, rubbed his fingers, then picked up the mouse and skillfully dragged the fingerprint into Photoshop.

Adjust brightness, adjust contrast, filter the background…

Jiang Yuan now performed these tasks with the fluid ease of a fishmonger gutting fish, a abalone seller shucking shells, or a courtesan stripping off her clothes—so swift it was dazzling.

Wei Zhenguo had previously watched trace evidence officers perform fingerprint matching; their slow, hesitant, agonizing motions made it seem like a fishmonger was selling abalone, an abalone seller was selling smiles, and a courtesan was gutting fish…

“This fingerprint has potential.” Jiang Yuan quickly marked ten distinctive points and sent them for automatic matching.

A list of twenty fingerprints appeared; Jiang Yuan glanced at only a few before stopping.

He placed two fingerprints side by side on the same screen, tilted his hand leftward, and said slowly: “The orientation’s slightly off, but they’re essentially the same.”

“Huh? Matched?” Xiao Wang jumped over to look.

“The tractor-burning case has matched.” Jiang Yuan glanced again, his spirits instantly lifting.

The greenhouse arson case’s fingerprints had been matched for a long time without success; Jiang Yuan had even begun to suspect the database didn’t contain the corresponding print.

But today’s case instantly tore through the layers of obscurity.

The match came from the tractor-burning case, but the real breakthrough might be a series of connected crimes.

Wei Zhenguo let out a sharp “Huh!” and leaned in to look, muttering: “So fast…”

He’d come to observe how Jiang Yuan handled fingerprints, but hadn’t expected that in just moments, he’d witness Jiang Yuan directly matching them—he’d previously shown these fingerprints to trace evidence officers in Qinghe City, but clearly, the city’s experts found matching fingerprints at this level anything but easy.

“Any prior arson record?” Wu Jun was also curious, wondering whether this case truly involved the same perpetrator, as Wei Zhenguo claimed.

Jiang Yuan opened the detailed information and shook his head: “No. His fingerprints were collected when he reported his ID lost at the local police station. Later, this print helped catch him for theft…”

Every police station has fingerprint collection targets, a concrete metric reflected in the “combat capability rankings” of police stations and the county bureau. Whenever someone came in for any service, they’d first be fingerprinted, no exceptions.

Wei Zhenguo nodded slightly, pulled out his phone, typed a message, and said: “I’ll go meet this… Jiang Forensic. Thanks for your hard work.”

He was a veteran detective; he could just notify his team leader and take two men along to act.

As he spoke, Wei Zhenguo had already reached the door, waved goodbye, and quickly stepped out.

Wang Zhong watched Wei Zhenguo leave, his expression suddenly turning grave: “Jiang Yuan, Wei Team Leader seems to really like you.”

Jiang Yuan: “How can you tell?”

“Wei Team Leader yells and glares at everyone else.”

“That kind of thing…”

“Wei Team Leader is someone you can rely on,” Wang Zhong sighed. “Jiang Yuan, seize this opportunity.”

“What’s the deal?” Jiang Yuan looked at Wang Zhong, puzzled.

Wang Zhong sighed deeply again: “Wei Team Leader’s daughter? She’s incredibly beautiful.”