Chapter 336

Jiang Yuan spread several photos across the desk and stared at them in thought.

This was his usual procedure; many of his cold cases began with photographs.

The other officers in the room either examined the photos, attended to their own tasks, or played with their phones for a brief rest.

Song Jinyou watched Jiang Yuan's expression closely and stepped forward to look.

All were photos he had seen before—some even taken by himself—and Song Jinyou wasn't sure Jiang Yuan could find anything new in them.

"I noticed several faces in the crowd keep appearing repeatedly…" Mu Zhiyang ventured.

His guess was the simplest and most natural: aside from the criminal returning to the scene, ordinary people who commit crimes always pay close attention to case developments.

It's a natural behavior; having a criminal record becomes the biggest event in most people's lives—they can't help but care.

Song Jinyou glanced at Jiang Yuan and said, "Everyone in these photos is from the village, and we took them only two or three days after the incidents."

Mu Zhiyang let out an "Oh," and understood at once.

These were photos taken two or three days apart, each separated by several days—forcing the claim that the criminal appears in them would be far too inaccurate.

If something was amiss at the scene, the criminal had two or three days to return and tamper with evidence. Meanwhile, villagers, driven by curiosity, were highly likely to gather. After all, this was a remote village—suddenly seeing outsiders, especially police, would naturally draw a crowd.

Besides, the photos couldn't possibly cover the entire time people were gathering. So using the crowd in these photos as a basis for speculation or analysis was practically meaningless.

"That means the criminal still had a chance to destroy evidence," Tang Jia added.

Song Jinyou nodded: "That's the real problem. Lan Zhu Village is extremely isolated—we can't stake it out. Any outsider entering the village gets noticed, and word spreads instantly. There's zero chance of hiding."

The officers present grew more somber.

Though it's true that every place leaves traces, if the scene was tampered with once—or even twice—the difficulty of investigation skyrockets.

Or rather, for ordinary investigators and technicians, the traces left behind are indeed different.

It's like taking a math problem, twisting it, twisting it again, twisting it once more, then asking the student to solve it—the later versions will have far lower success rates.

Those who can truly integrate and comprehend are rare; for officers at the police station or county bureau, this level of difficulty is beyond their scope.

Everyone turned back to Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan smiled, pulled out several photos of footprints at the scene, and said, "Recognizing faces won't work, but footprints are few—still worth analyzing."

In rural settings, surveillance footage and DNA aren't especially useful; the latter degrades rapidly in such environments.

But footprints are relatively reliable in rural or wilderness areas.

On one hand, rural areas have many soft-soil spots that preserve footprints well; on the other, dust leaves abundant footprints.

In Song Jinyou's photos, the pond's edge, the pigpen, and the donkey pen all bore numerous footprint traces.

Jiang Yuan said, "Compared to crowd photos, footprints better reflect the actual scene. Looking at these three cases, the pond case has the most chaotic footprints—likely because people visited the site over multiple days. But the pig and donkey cases still preserve decent footprints; though traces span several days, we can still distinguish those from the day of the incident and the following days."

"Huh? You can tell them apart?" Song Jinyou was stunned. "Can you tell the difference between footprints made today versus tomorrow?"

"In this environment, footprints from neighboring days have a high chance of being distinguishable," Jiang Yuan said. "Look at the edge firmness and grayscale in these soft-ground prints—they're relatively clear."

Song Jinyou chuckled, too lazy to even look. Clear? If this were clear, the county's trace unit would jump off the building.

Wang Zhong beside him also let out a dumb chuckle. He was the trace technician himself—footprint analysis level 0. . He had to scrutinize carefully just to tell pig hooves from donkey hooves.

"In short, we can narrow down a few suspects using footprints," Jiang Yuan said, no longer planning to lecture them.

Lecturing experts makes sense; but with Song Jinyou—he didn't even need to convince him. He'd just give orders. No need to explain further.

"This footprint appears most frequently," Jiang Yuan pulled one photo and circled a print with a red pen.

"This one also appears frequently, and there are more prints."

"This one appears every time—third most frequent."

"And this one appears every time too."

Jiang Yuan marked four footprints total, then added: "The first is female, aged 46 to 47. Height 156 cm, weight around 65 kg."

"The second is male, 51 years old. Height 165 cm, weight 75 kg."

"The third is male, 32 years old. Height 172 cm, weight around 85 kg."

"The fourth is female, aged 52 to 54. Height around 155 cm, weight about 60 kg."

As Jiang Yuan spoke, Tang Jia recorded each detail beside him.

When he finished, Jiang Yuan reviewed them again and pointed: "From one to four, foot lengths are 21 cm, 24 cm, 24. cm, and 22. cm."

Tang Jia noted them down.

Song Jinyou frowned at the photos: "You can tell foot length directly from these photos?"

"Foot length—not shoe length. Don't measure the shoes when you find them," Jiang Yuan paused, then pointed to number four. "This one has severe hallux valgus. Note that."

"Understood," Tang Jia quickly added the note.

Jiang Yuan then took a photo, handed the paper to Song Jinyou, and said: "Please send someone to check on these four individuals—or bring them in for questioning."

"Got it, got it," Song Jinyou understood—Jiang Yuan had narrowed the suspects down to four?

If true, the case became very simple.

A village has only a few hundred people; filtering by height, foot length, and weight would easily narrow it to four.

Similarly, if they could lock in these four, finding the real criminal wouldn't be too hard.

Song Jinyou immediately selected several officers, joined by Jiang Yuan's team, and headed straight for Lan Zhu Village.

"The roads are better now, but we probably won't get results until tomorrow. Let's rest and have something to eat," Song Jinyou's courtesy rose another notch.

Hearing Jiang Yuan could solve cases, witnessing Jiang Yuan solve cases, being solved by Jiang Yuan—these were three ascending levels.

Song Jinyou now looked at Jiang Yuan as if he were a wish-granting bodhisattva.

The next day.

Eight officers returned with four suspects.

Meng Chengbiao returned with them and reported to Jiang Yuan before interrogation: "Most likely suspect number one, Gan Jingying."

Jiang Yuan asked only: "Could it be multiple perpetrators?"

"No," Meng Chengbiao said. "We found rat poison in her home. None of her chickens, ducks, geese, or pigs had been poisoned before. She has longstanding grudges with all the victims. Also, Gan Jingying is extremely volatile—she gets along with no one." He added: "I'll pay special attention during interrogation."

Jiang Yuan nodded—he trusted Meng Chengbiao's judgment on this.

Meng Chengbiao continued: "The other three suspects have more plausible reasons for appearing at the crime scenes. Only Gan Jingying never showed up to watch the first two incidents—but her footprints were left at the scenes…"

Meng Chengbiao went into interrogation with a preconceived target—technically not standard procedure. But in criminal cases, standards rarely exist.

Gan Jingying offered almost no resistance and confessed the entire crime.

During her confession, she wept bitterly, denouncing the villagers' oppression and humiliation of her…

Jiang Yuan and the others in the monitoring room found it dull.

Most suspects behave this way—they always try to justify their actions as righteous.

A little-known fact: most criminals believe they are good people.

So if you judge by self-perception, most parents have raised their children very successfully.

Song Jinyou, a veteran officer, had a higher threshold for sympathy. After listening a while, he muttered: "So she's just a coward—only dares to use small doses of poison."

"No wonder we couldn't detect any toxins when we arrived," Jiang Yuan now understood. For months, even years, Gan Jingying hadn't just poisoned these dead animals. Whenever she was upset with someone, she'd slip a tiny bit of rat poison—often mixed into feed.

Some livestock died—like the recent pig and donkey—but others in the village remained unharmed.

By the time Song Jinyou sent people to collect samples, bring them back, and queue for testing at the county bureau, the toxins were long gone. Of course, Ningtai County Bureau's technical capability was also poor—if someone had died, the testing method would've been different.

"Alright. Next, arrest this person," Jiang Yuan said, exporting a file—it was a small case he'd handled last night.