Chapter 310

Put 7 grams of tea leaves into the teacup, pour in 97-degree boiling water, and wisps of steam immediately rose.

The rolling tea leaves spun like the wheels of a circus bike, whirling rapidly in the water.

Across a green pothos plant, three sticks of incense had just been lit; their curling smoke carried a faint, wheat-like aroma.

Two chairs away, Wu Jun bit down on a cigarette, exhaling grayish smoke while drawing talismans with cinnabar, muttering constantly: "Long life, career success."

Jiang Yuan confidently adjusted his chair, placed the mouse, calmed his emotions, then solemnly pulled up a fingerprint—

A fingerprint from a theft case eight years ago.

Jiang Yuan glanced at it twice, then rapidly began marking feature points.

Wu Jun heard the clicking of his mouse and walked over to look; after half a minute, he said: "If this fingerprint had any spirit, it probably never imagined it'd be dug up and matched again after eight years."

"Mainly because the location was ideal—it was on the inside of the door handle. Getting a match here significantly increases the chance of identifying the suspect." Jiang Yuan replied, then sent the annotated fingerprint to the backend.

His fingerprint analysis skill was extremely high: LV4 Qingdao single-fingerprint method, LV3 Chongqing single-fingerprint method, plus LV5 Image Zetiang, making him worth more than three experts combined.

The internal network responded quickly, listing a row of thirty fingerprints within minutes.

Jiang Yuan compared them one by one; not long after, he matched the fingerprint at position seventeen.

"This fingerprint's quality is terrible—too much glare. But matching it isn't hard." Jiang Yuan casually explained as Wu Jun watched.

Wu Jun nodded. "The thief probably never thought a theft case from eight years ago would still be cracked open."

Jiang Yuan said: "Who told him to become a thief?"

As he spoke, Jiang Yuan pulled up the suspect's file—it was indeed a repeat offender, having already served three prison terms.

Jiang Yuan shook his head, organized the file, then began searching for the next fingerprint to analyze.

The fingerprints he was selecting now were roughly LV3 in difficulty—the level at which even Ningtai County's forensic team couldn't handle them, and even Qinghe City's team struggled.

Different regions handled such cases differently; unless they were extremely busy, they usually accumulated a batch and sent them all to one expert at once.

In Shannan Province's standards, not every expert eight years ago had LV3 capability. Even those who did had only a certain success rate when analyzing LV3-level fingerprints. For theft cases carrying only three to seven years' sentences, the priority was low.

Jiang Yuan's old strategy was similar, but this time, he wasn't picky.

He even kind of liked theft cases.

Theft cases were good—criminals were usually professional or semi-professional, unlike robbers or murderers, who were often amateurs doing it for the first time. So theft suspects' fingerprints were frequently already in the database, giving him a crucial head start.

For Jiang Yuan, he wasn't afraid of complex fingerprints—he was afraid the database had no matching prints.

Today, Jiang Yuan didn't want to work on homicide cases. Ningtai County's homicide cases had already been cleared back to twenty years ago; the rest couldn't be solved by fingerprints alone.

Under these conditions, theft cases became Jiang Yuan's target for rapid processing.

Match one fingerprint, take two sips of tea, then move to the next—within half an hour, the second fingerprint was successfully matched.

This one was even simpler—the suspect was currently in administrative detention; they could just bring him in for interrogation directly.

Click-click-click-click.

Jiang Yuan rapidly clicked the mouse.

His overall fingerprint analysis ability ranked among the top tier in the country; with a bit more experience, he'd nearly reach the pinnacle.

Experts of this level were typically locked in rooms all day, processing homicide fingerprints. To get them to handle a robbery case, it had to be a high-profile case—like one where the suspect even robbed dogs.

Ordinary theft cases in small counties were never expected to be matched by an expert of this caliber.

Some of these backlog cases might have simply piled up because the original forensic teams were overwhelmed—like Wang Zhong, an LV0. forensic officer, who might spend half a day just matching a single ordinary theft fingerprint, then waste more time in meetings, on business trips, or running errands for senior officers, managing only two cases a day at best.

Jiang Yuan was different—he focused intensely, could mark feature points in one round, and even in bad luck, only needed two or three rounds, taking about an hour.

So by the end of the afternoon, Jiang Yuan had already matched four fingerprints.

His efficiency was lower than when he participated in province-wide operations, when he was fully focused and in peak condition.

Now, sitting in the office, slightly slower efficiency was normal.

Even so, when Jiang Yuan called Huang Qiangmin, the latter was still slightly startled.

"Four cases already?" Huang Qiangmin, holding the phone, sounded awkwardly unaccustomed to expressing surprise.

"Four theft cases," Jiang Yuan emphasized.

"Backlog theft cases are still cases! You solved what others couldn't—that's real ability. Fine, I'll notify them to make arrests." Huang Qiangmin immediately showered him with flattery.

Huang Qiangmin even felt a tiny pang of regret. If he hadn't transferred Jiang Yuan to the Changyang City Criminal Brigade, how many more cases might Ningtai County have cracked?

Huang Qiangmin looked up at the new Criminal Brigade building under construction, and couldn't help but feel sorry. If the police station's rank were higher and funding more generous, they could have kept Jiang Yuan to clear backlog cases—no need for long; within months, they could have reunited hundreds of families torn apart by crime.

Huang Qiangmin immediately dispatched Wu Junhao's First Squad.

This squad had been idle lately—few arrest opportunities, minor cases solved themselves, and no major cases had come up.

Huang Qiangmin worried they'd grow rusty, so he assigned them the task immediately.

Needless to say, these four thieves were about to face a brutal crackdown by over a dozen strong officers.

Jiang Yuan clocked out on time and returned home as usual to loosen the soil for his winter melon.

Meanwhile, Ningtai County's Criminal Brigade suddenly became unusually busy.

Even small cases mattered—after resting well, the officers now hunted through the county like wolves, some even dispatched to other regions to track down suspects.

Jiang Yuan worked on fingerprints for two days before seeing his task progress update.

1/x, 2/x, 3/x…

This meant a case was only counted once the suspect was arrested.

So Jiang Yuan wasn't in a hurry to claim credit—he let Ningtai's officers make the arrests while he returned to Changyang City.

The municipal bureau's year-end meeting was fast approaching.

On the day Jiang Yuan reported in, he was immediately dragged off and thrown into the rehearsal lineup.