Chapter 444

Captain Bai felt a bit guilty after what Huang Qiangmin said. He laughed loudly twice and said: "If you guys can solve the case, everything is fine. If the case can't be solved, don't brag."

Huang Qiangmin crushed the cigarette in his hand into the spider plant's pot, lit another one, and said with a dazed look: "Old Bai, I didn't have much contact with you before, and I didn't realize that your mouth is really tough."

"You win, you can say whatever you want. If you can't solve the case, get lost." Captain Bai's eyes became exceptionally arrogant. Although he saw through the blunt provocation at a glance, it was still very unpleasant.

Huang Qiangmin laughed: "If your IQ were a bit tougher, you would know that the reason our Jiang Yuan came to your Shi Tingxian is because he has been constantly solving cold cases... Does the number of homicides you, Bai Jian, have solved in your life equal the number our Jiang Yuan has solved in two years?"

Captain Bai refused to admit defeat and said bluntly: "No need to compare. The number of homicides I've solved in my life might not even equal what your Jiang Yuan solves in a year... but..."

Huang Qiangmin's expression had originally softened, but upon hearing the word 'but,' he could only look helplessly at Captain Bai Jian.

Bai Jian said: "Even if you solve many cases, solving countless cases doesn't mean you can solve this one. Let me put it this way: there is no one in the world who dares to say he can solve all cases, right?"

Huang Qiangmin was stunned. With such a tough mouth, even if it were thrown to him, he wouldn't have the confidence to bite it to pieces.

Liu Jinghui, listening from the side, found it interesting and laughed: "Captain Bai, logically speaking, what you just said is a fallacy of changing the concept."

Captain Bai was embarrassed to argue with Liu Jinghui, who came from the Provincial Department, so he puffed up his mouth to bolster himself.

At this moment, Jiang Yuan said: "Captain Bai, find two criminal police officers from the special task force for the Ma Jiazhuang family murder case, the kind who followed it from beginning to end."

Bai Jian said: "I am one. What do you want to ask?"

"Did you investigate the footprints on the window?" Jiang Yuan took out a photo, which was a close-up of one-fifth of a footprint. It was roughly the middle part of a shoe, left on the window frame.

As soon as Bai Jian heard this, he knew what Jiang Yuan was asking about, and said: "We specifically asked someone to look at this footprint back then. It was too small to be used as evidence."

The entire crime scene was a mess. It was already impossible to distinguish which footprints were the villagers', which were the killer's, and which were the police officers and joint defense team members who came later. Only the one-fifth footprint on the window could basically be determined to be the killer's.

This was a typical footprint position for a burglary. The Shi Tingxian forensic team also did their best to take a relatively complete footprint.

However, because of the structure of the window frame, it was very small itself, and in the end, it didn't play a role.

Similar to fingerprints, footprints also need a certain size and certain characteristic points to be compared easily.

One-fifth of a footprint, and only the middle part of the shoe at that—in the eyes of a normal footprint expert, this is basically useless evidence.

Unless it's LV5!

Jiang Yuan had already carefully looked at this footprint just now. He picked up another photo from his side, placed it in a row with the one-fifth footprint, and said: "These two footprints are together. They are footprints of the same person."

The two photos were both footprints; one was only the normal one-fifth, and the other was complete.

Bai Jian was stunned, his expression gradually turning into: Are you kidding me?

Because in the two photos in front of him, the former was a footprint of a sneaker, and the latter was a footprint of an old cotton shoe.

The shoes were different, yet he said they were footprints of the same person...

Jiang Yuan explained on the spot: "I think it should be that the killer changed shoes after completing the criminal act."

At this, not only Bai Jian, but everyone else in the office crowded over.

Changing shoes in the middle of a crime—this kind of thing had been heard of, but it was very rare to see.

Huang Qiangmin also pretended to be calm and gave a humph, feeling curious inside as well. To be honest, he hadn't seen many difficult cases in his life; perhaps half of the difficult cases in his life had been seen while following Jiang Yuan. There was no help for it; the killer who committed such cases couldn't concentrate on committing crimes in Ningtai County, so only a police officer like Jiang Yuan, who traveled around committing crimes, could be so knowledgeable.

Jiang Yuan took a third photo, which was a smeared bloodstain, numbered 277.

While writing the number in his notebook, Jiang Yuan said: "The killer very likely stepped in blood. To avoid leaving overly obvious traces, the killer took off his shoes here and put on a pair of the victim's shoes."

Jiang Yuan began to display a large number of photos, which were photos of the old cotton shoes and sneakers' footprints indoors, respectively.

Previously, Bai Jian and the other criminal police officers of Shi Tingxian hadn't considered doing the case from the direction of footprints, but the clues from the footprints were too few, and there were too many footprints.

The Ma family's courtyard had hard ground. Walking from the hard ground into the living room's tiles left a large number of footprints, but the clarity wasn't high.

From the one-fifth footprint on the window frame to the step of the sneaker on the ground—it's no exaggeration to say that even without an LV5 footprint identification skill, one would at least need a high-level LV3. And this step was something most footprint experts in Shannan Province couldn't achieve.

If it were a super major case and there were absolutely no clues, and one had to rely on footprints, one could pack up all the footprints in the courtyard, classify them, and then compare them. Then, finding a high-level LV3 footprint expert could also do this case, just like what Jiang Yuan did before. The whole process was relatively cumbersome and relatively time-consuming.

However, Jiang Yuan didn't need to go to such trouble now. The newly upgraded LV5 footprint identification could just play its role when encountering such high-difficulty footprints.

And this step was the most important 0-1.

In comparison, the shoe-changing that everyone was more concerned about and curious about was actually 1-2, which could be easily judged with a low-level LV3.

Immediately after, Jiang Yuan released a few more photos of bloodstains and said:

"The killer first entered wearing his own sneakers. As a result, not long after entering, he encountered the victim, Ma Jun. Ma Jun probably didn't realize that someone had broken in. The killer killed the victim Ma Jun at a very fast speed. Afterward, he took off his own shoes, took out a pair of Ma Jun's shoes from the shoe cabinet not far away, continued to commit the crime, and finally left wearing his own shoes."

"The shoe sizes of the victim Ma Jun and the killer were quite similar; they should only differ by half a size, a difference like 42 and 42.5."

"The two people's heights were similar, but their weights and ages differed significantly. Therefore, from here, one can distinguish that some of the old cotton shoe prints were the victim Ma Jun's, and others were very likely the killer's."

Bai Jian hurriedly said at this time: "This kind of old cotton shoe sold a lot back then. There are quite a few people in Ma Jiazhuang who wear the same shoe soles. How to distinguish them?"

Jiang Yuan said easily: "Even if they are shoes from the same batch, the soles are the same, but the degree of wear is different. Shoe soles after wear naturally have differences."

Jiang Yuan laid out three photos on the spot as examples: "These three are the footprints of three identical old cotton shoes at the crime scene. You can see that the wear points on the right side, left side, and heel position are all different."

Bai Jian opened his eyes wide, feeling like he saw it, but also feeling like he saw nothing.

It was impossible for Jiang Yuan to explain "the influence of different tones on magic power" to a Muggle. After waiting for a while, he continued: "The key is that the same type of shoe print can show two different physical characteristics, which also shows that this pair of shoes was worn by two people..."

"The same pair of old cotton shoes has discordant footprints. Although it's possible that family members mixed them up, comparing them with the sneakers still allows one to distinguish the difference."

"In short, looking for a breakthrough through the footprints at the scene—as of now, I think it's feasible."

Jiang Yuan quickly made a summary and looked at Captain Bai.

Bai Jian had no way to refute, and even felt that what Jiang Yuan said made some sense.

At this moment, Bai Jian's heart began to thump wildly, uncontrollably.

If the point Jiang Yuan raised was confirmed, this case would really have a new lead.

For a cold homicide case, any new lead is precious. Moreover, the lead in front of him sounded reliable.

"The killer should have a certain understanding of Ma Jun's family. Looking at the movement line of the bloodstains, one can see that the killer's route was very decisive." Liu Jinghui suddenly added: "A fellow villager? Or a relative or friend?"

Jiang Yuan said: "The killing was also very decisive."

"Ma Jiazhuang is a relatively remote village, right? A few years ago, outsiders should have gone there relatively rarely. So, to know the layout of Ma Jun's house, especially to be able to find Ma Jun's house, it should be something only a local could do. However, Ma Jun's family wasn't too wealthy. Why did they happen to find his house as the first house for burglary?" Liu Jinghui thought while speaking, and a large amount of inspiration was already bursting forth in his mind.

Huang Qiangmin silently took out his phone and started sending messages to several leaders in charge of Shi Tingxian.