Chapter 397

"Old Tao, we're in a meeting—there's a record. Maybe say something serious." Feng Qiong sighed helplessly.

The leaders from the Miaohe County Bureau smoked beside him, like destroyers with smoke generators, heads bowed, crouching—perhaps because they smoked too hard, a row of their smoke rose thick, dense, slow, and steady upward, drifting gently with the wind.

In police investigations, people often chatter nonsense; there's no point counting every deviation—just ignore it.

On the other end of the phone, Old Tao was as unmoved as a dead pig unfazed by boiling water; he grunted twice, ignoring Feng Qiong's bait, and simply said: "I can't give you a definite answer. If you only have photos, I can't issue an identification report. But I don't oppose or disagree with Jiang Yuan's assessment."

"You… I'd give you the corpse if I could—it's already turned to bone." Feng Qiong shook his head helplessly as Old Tao slipped away clean.

He understood Old Tao's mindset: the case wasn't Old Tao's—it was his and Kang Zhichao's. Old Tao was willing to offer suggestions or help, but for such a major case shift, he wouldn't dare draw a conclusion lightly.

The criminal investigators in Anhai City probably wouldn't be happy when they heard the news. From this perspective, it could only be said that Jiang Yuan was still young—but if this case followed Jiang Yuan's line of thought, the Anhai investigators would likely grit their teeth and mutter, "Impressive."

In the police world, having a good reputation—especially at a young age—wasn't a bad thing.

As for Old Tao, his main reason for refusing the case was still his lack of confidence.

He lacked the ability to make such judgments, so he dared not issue conclusions lightly. Signing an identification report carried responsibility.

In an extremely short time, Feng Qiong thought of many things.

As for directing criminal investigations and organizing frontline forces, Feng Qiong was only at level 2.5; but in coordinating various parties, especially integrating resources and resolving conflicts, channeling energy—he had considerable experience; even when he didn't try hard, his performance easily surpassed level 3.

At this moment, Feng Qiong could rely on only Kang Zhichao, so he turned and asked: "Old Kang, what do you think? You're the tech guy—give us a judgment."

"I'm a trace evidence specialist; forensic medicine is just a side job. If there were a corpse right in front of me and the forensic doctor hadn't arrived yet, I could do a quick external examination—no problem. But now? If even Old Tao can't handle it, I truly can't." Kang Zhichao looked at Jiang Yuan and asked gently: "Jiang Forensic, who's your master?"

"My master is Wu Jun," Jiang Yuan replied.

"Wu Jun…" Kang Zhichao's mind raced, yet he still couldn't match the name to any big names.

Feng Qiong lit a cigarette and buried himself in the smoke.

After thinking for a while, Feng Qiong said: "Then let's leave it like this—I'll consult a few more experts and think it over."

This was the standard answer. He'd originally wanted to crack the case as fast as possible, but in the end, he'd have to proceed step by step. And unlike provincial bureaus, ministries didn't operate the same way—Feng Qiong might invite higher-level experts, but they were likely busier and couldn't always coordinate with his special task force on schedule.

Feng Qiong quickly ended the meeting.

The Miaohe side didn't care either—they happily finished off the remaining cigarettes.

Director Guan Xingfu even picked out two unopened packs of Zhonghua and handed them to Jiang Yuan: "Jiang Team Leader, take these. I didn't know you smoked—I'll send you two more cartons later."

He hadn't cared whether Jiang Yuan smoked before—now he just wanted to flatter him.

Jiang Yuan smiled: "I only smoke one to pass the time—it's just a waste."

"When you smoke, it's not a waste," Guan Xingfu laughed heartily, added a few more compliments to deepen the impression, then reluctantly left.

Jiang Yuan also stepped outside and at the door saw Kang Zhichao waiting in the corridor.

Kang Zhichao was a middle-aged man with gray temples. His physique looked decent—without his hair, he might pass for early 40s, but with his hair, one naturally added ten years.

Kang Zhichao held a cigarette too, didn't smoke much himself, just let the wind take it; his expression looked more melancholy than the wind.

"Comrade Kang," Jiang Yuan guessed he was waiting for him.

Kang Zhichao crushed out his cigarette and said: "Jiang Forensic, do you have time? Let's discuss this."

Although he'd shut Feng Qiong down in the meeting room, he was different from Old Tao—this case was his and Feng Qiong's; he couldn't escape involvement.

So after leaving the meeting room, Kang Zhichao followed Feng Qiong's advice and decided to have a serious, detailed talk with Jiang Yuan to firmly determine the time of death.

After all, this would decide whether they focused on Liao Baoquan's recent years in Miaohe County or went back to Anhai City to restart the investigation.

Jiang Yuan grunted: "Let's walk and talk."

"Alright. Regarding corneal analysis for time of death, from my understanding, it's generally accurate within 24 hours, but only to about a two-hour margin. For example, white spots appearing on the cornea indicate 5–6 hours postmortem; when they expand into cloud-like patches, it's likely 10–12 hours; then, when the cornea becomes hazy like fog, it's 15–24 hours…"

"Generally, yes. If there's no need for extreme precision, I also classify it as mild, moderate, or severe." Jiang Yuan first affirmed Kang Zhichao's words, then added: "But looking at the photos of the two victims, I immediately felt their times of death were very close. So I became deeply interested in the forensic report's time-of-death determination—I wanted to know how the forensic doctor concluded the sequence of their deaths."

Kang Zhichao understood: it was the kind of genius who thought the problem was too hard to believe anyone else could solve.

"Later, I read the forensic report—the forensic doctor who performed the autopsy didn't give a clear time of death. Even the liver and gastric fluid analyses couldn't determine it clearly." Jiang Yuan paused, then said: "So the sequence between Victim One and Victim Two has no forensic basis."

"But you can determine it from one—no, two photos?"

"Those two photos were just the final comparison. Other photos—especially environmental ones—are useful too." Jiang Yuan no longer held back, speaking with emphasis: "Environmental factors—temperature, humidity, air circulation—affect time of death. Personal factors and human interference—such as injuries, illness, body movement—all influence the timing and degree of corneal opacity. This isn't just studied by forensic doctors; ophthalmologists have done far more research."

"Huh?"

"The Ophthalmology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association has been researching this for years, especially now that refractive surgery volumes are so high—corneal research naturally has to keep pace." Jiang Yuan saw Kang Zhichao's blank expression and added: "I'll send you some papers later. Read them, then we can talk again if needed."

"Alright." Kang Zhichao obediently pulled out his phone and respectfully added Jiang Yuan on WeChat.

After a moment, Kang Zhichao's phone began chiming incessantly.

He quickly opened it and saw Jiang Yuan's earlier articles were normal—titles like "Research on Time-of-Death Estimation Based on Corneal Images," "Forensic Analysis of Corneal Opacity in 136 Corpses"—but soon, Jiang Yuan stopped sending content and began sending only titles, the tone spiraling into an unspoken horror: "Corneal Thickness in Normal Chinese Eyes," "Mechanism of Corneal Opacity Formation," "Complete Textbook of Ophthalmology," "Ophthalmology," "Forensic Ophthalmology," "Ophthalmology"…

Kang Zhichao slowly raised his head, staring at Jiang Yuan still typing, thinking: We just wanted to check the victim's corneas—why do I need to become an ophthalmologist?

Of course, Kang Zhichao now dared not speak so rudely to Jiang Yuan, so he asked: "Jiang Forensic, have you read all these books?"

"Yes." Jiang Yuan answered calmly. His level-6 skill in time-of-death identification was earned through merit, just like a student who studies day and night. After all, finishing these books requires talent—some have intellectual talent, some have discipline, some have intense focus, some have system-given talent.

Beyond that, everyone works hard. Like Jiang Yuan—he named every dog in the county just to master a level-3 skull reconstruction technique. Those dog registration books? Proof of effort.

Now, getting Kang Zhichao and Feng Qiong out of here quickly was another kind of effort.

And facing a level-6 skill, Kang Zhichao's forensic talent had reached its limit.

In fact, even full-time forensic doctors with one skill above level 4 could enter the ministry's expert database—this was after averaging out the top talent from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In remote provinces like Shannan, level 3 was the top tier of provincial expert pools; the ministry either accepted level 3 or rejected it—still level 3.

Level 5 and level 6? Those were gifted outliers. For some universal skills, like fingerprint analysis, you occasionally saw level-5 experts—but level 6? Gaps were the norm.

Kang Zhichao couldn't even grasp Jiang Yuan's baseline; at this point, only Old Tao's words surfaced in his mind.

He suddenly realized: Old Tao had already said everything he could. He and Feng Qiong just hadn't understood—and in the meeting, Old Tao couldn't say more.

…

Jiang Yuan himself couldn't say more either.

For this unsolved case, he'd already achieved breakthrough with his strongest skill—one far beyond normal levels—and that was already extremely difficult. Demanding another breakthrough was unrealistic. In truth, he hadn't invested much effort—he simply saw the evidence align.

Jiang Yuan certainly wouldn't follow Kang Zhichao and Feng Qiong to Anhai City. He had more important things here.

Yes, Jiang Yuan had confirmed: Feng Qiong and Kang Zhichao were going to Anhai City. To solve the case, they had to return to the origin.

Having spent a day on someone else's case, Jiang Yuan wasn't in a hurry to return.

After all, everyone was still waiting for Case 503; without clear changes, the Miaohe County police wouldn't listen to him.

Jiang Yuan simply went to the largest restaurant in town, sat in the main hall, ordered a few dishes, and a bottle of wine, preparing to drink alone and enjoy himself.

The dishes arrived quickly.

Jiang Yuan was about to lift his chopsticks when a group of people emerged from behind the entrance screen—the lead was a pale, rosy-cheeked girl, hugging a gray, wrinkled Pug.

"Guihua?" Jiang Yuan blurted out involuntarily.

The Pug lifted its head sharply and looked at Jiang Yuan.