Chapter 469

"There really are several dozen people... Hmm, there must be over a hundred by now."

Standing in the criminal police detachment's conference room, the deputy detachment leader of the anti-narcotics detachment flipped through the list Jiang Yuan had pulled out page by page and exchanged a look with Captain Qian.

Captain Qian nodded solemnly and said, "On the way over here, I communicated with the home base, and it should be correct. Any further verification will still match up."

"Are they all matches from the fingerprints we provided?"

"Yes."

Moreover, as the saying goes, a high difficulty coefficient for fingerprints doesn't necessarily mean the fingerprints have great value. Without knowing the source of the fingerprints, spending a painstaking hour or two to process a super-high-difficulty, problematic fingerprint might only lock in a decadent drug addict who is middle-aged, graduated, has a loan but no house, has a broken family, is in rags, has ED, shrunken testicles, high myopia, is sickly, has no face to seduce people, no internet to read porn, no money to visit prostitutes, no strength to commit rape, and no guts to commit suicide.

Of the dozen or so people in this conference room, besides him and Captain Qian, everyone else, including Jiang Yuan, did not know where the evidence came from; they were simply processing the evidence.

And the deputy detachment leader knew very well that the fingerprints in this list included some extracted from small packets of drugs, which meant they were either members of the drug sales chain or drug users who shared the drugs.

Other fingerprints were obtained from intelligence on suspected high-risk locations acquired recently; for instance, the office building Jiang Yuan had just identified as a suspected Huang Li manufacturing factory was a high-risk location. Anti-narcotics personnel could not enter directly, so they designed things in nearby parking lots, convenience stores, and restaurants that required human contact, such as installing an extra lift-gate that required pressing a button, changing the inner doors of public toilets to a manual pull-to-open mode, and so on.

In short, most of the fingerprints they provided, once the individuals were identified, were basically criminals, and a portion of them would even face the death penalty.

But honestly speaking, the deputy detachment leader had watched his subordinates send the evidence over, and when sending it, he truly hadn't expected that what he would get back would be a Death Note.

"Jiang Yuan of Ningtai, his murderous flame is towering." The deputy detachment leader recalled this phrase and immediately had a personal realization.

"What should we do?" Captain Qian couldn't help but be anxious; there were nearly a hundred people here, and it looked like there would be over a hundred criminal suspects.

If they didn't make arrests, would these people run?

Even without considering leaks, criminals themselves are mobile; if it were just one or two, they could move as they pleased, and the anti-narcotics detachment wouldn't care about a little travel money.

Now it was different; with over a hundred criminal suspects, not only was tracking them difficult, but if 10% or 20% ran—that would be ten or twenty people—it would be a pity just thinking about it.

While there were certainly underlings among them, there were definitely essential mid-level drug traffickers as well.

How difficult would it be to catch such a person normally? Now that they were right in front of you, to catch or not to catch?

But if they made arrests, the drug trafficking gang would definitely have a stress reaction. They weren't like those penniless thugs who could only run to their relatives' or friends' homes. Drug traffickers might leave the country in the blink of an eye, and in a few years, they might even die abroad, making it impossible to bring them to justice.

Most importantly, behind these suspects, there might be even more people involved.

Perhaps there was truly hope of uprooting both criminal gangs.

Such an opportunity, even for a detachment-level anti-narcotics team, was not easy to achieve.

What Captain Qian could think of, the deputy detachment leader could think of too.

While he was thinking and weighing the pros and cons, the printer beside him kept creaking and spitting out slips of paper.

"Suddenly feel like we're a school beauty." The deputy detachment leader, with his rough face, suddenly said this, which gave Captain Qian a fright.

"How... how did we become a school beauty?" Captain Qian was a bit panicked; he was old and couldn't handle the stimulation.

The deputy detachment leader said, "When I was in school, the school beauty in our class was just like this; she hadn't even finished reading one note before another one was sent over. In one recess, she could be stuffed with a pile of notes."

"That school beauty must have been very beautiful." Captain Qian was envious.

The deputy detachment leader gave an "En" and said, "She was truly beautiful. Later, she was tricked into using drugs, and when she died, she looked better than other corpses."

"What a pity." Captain Qian was too old; hearing such stories now, his emotions didn't fluctuate much, and he only said, "This time, we can catch a few more drug dealers to offer as a sacrifice."

"En... I'll call the detachment leader over to take a look; we're not in a rush for this one hour." Having said this, the deputy detachment leader had also thought it through: Jiang Yuan had only just started fingerprint comparison and had already matched so many drug addicts and dealers; although there might not be many important figures among them, this was only the beginning.

There were still so many fingerprints left; even if they couldn't maintain the current ratio, with so many fingerprints, it wouldn't be strange to match another 100.

So making arrests now would definitely be a case of the losses outweighing the gains.

But on the other hand, he also couldn't bear such a huge decision-making risk; if they arrested all the nearly a hundred people on the list in his hand...

The deputy detachment leader couldn't help but clench his fists, unable to resist the temptation.

An hour later, the detachment leader of the anti-narcotics detachment arrived at the conference room.

He must have been out earlier, as there were sweat stains on his collar, and he had nowhere to change clothes; perhaps he didn't care either, as he looked at the list the deputy detachment leader mentioned as soon as he entered.

The deputy detachment leader held it and placed it before him.

The deputy detachment leader flipped through a few pages and found that one page was one person, so he couldn't help but say, "This... is more than a few dozen or a hundred pages."

"In the time it took you to get here, Team Leader Jiang has already processed another thirty or so people." The deputy detachment leader gestured with his chin. He couldn't make a special phone call to talk about this in the middle of things.

Jiang Yuan lifted his head politely, smiled, and greeted, "Detachment Leader."

"Oh... Jiang Yuan, thank you for your hard work." The detachment leader didn't grasp Jiang Yuan's intention of saving time and even went over to shake his hand.

Jiang Yuan could only stand up to shake hands and said again, "I'm in the zone; I'll do a bit more, and I'll treat you to a meal later?"

Although there was a 24-hour cooldown, it shouldn't be wasted. When it came time to make arrests, this one hour of effort might add two more names to the death penalty list; for such things, it was better not to delay.

The detachment leader was naturally all smiles and hurriedly said, "You do your work; if you need anything, just tell me, and we'll provide you with good service. By the way, are these photos and materials complete?"

"They're alright; I can only process the existing materials and evidence." Jiang Yuan said this and sat down to look at the computer screen. The LV5 fingerprint appraisal technology didn't seem to be much stronger than LV4, but if one looked closely, it was roughly the difference between an Olympic champion and a National Games champion in a 100-meter dash; it seemed like a difference of only a few tenths of a second, but in reality, it was a world of difference.

When facing fingerprints, it was actually the same; a miss is as good as a mile.

If they were all simple fingerprints, then an LV3 or LV2 fingerprint expert could handle them. But if one encountered complex, difficult fingerprints, an LV3 might need several days to work on them, an LV4 might be able to do it in a day or two, and for an LV5, they might get results very quickly.

Jiang Yuan was currently facing many fingerprint pieces of evidence, and processing them with his LV5 skill was very fast, but if he were back at LV4, the final result might be similar, but it would be possible to spend several more days, or even a week.

Previously, when Jiang Yuan did fingerprints, he often had to spend several days, and ordinary experts were the same; everyone relied on technology, meticulousness, and sometimes luck.

Criminals were actually the same; if their luck was bad, even if they cleaned the crime scene very meticulously, they might still encounter an LV3 expert, and all their previous efforts would be wasted.

The most common released prisoners in drug trafficking gangs were sometimes very smart people who had trained for many years; the crimes they planned and implemented could even deceive LV3 experts, but if they went up against Jiang Yuan's current LV5, it would all be in vain. Everyone wouldn't even know whether he was strong or not.

The current situation was actually like this: among the evidence collected by the anti-narcotics detachment, the ambiguity or difficulty of some evidence was outrageous, and it might be something that ordinary LV3 experts couldn't handle simply.

Jiang Yuan would have previously estimated that he would have to process it for a while, or set it aside and come back to process it over a longer period.

Today, it was all broken through in one go; whether it was difficult or not, perhaps besides Jiang Yuan, the criminals themselves didn't know.

The detachment leader turned back and, like the deputy detachment leader just now, started flipping through those "resumes" page by page again.

His expression gradually became serious, then he wanted to laugh a little, and finally, he couldn't help but reveal a smile at the corners of his mouth.

His movements also became slow involuntarily, and finally, he read them with a sense of being cherished, even a bit devoutly.

The deputy detachment leader had to remind the detachment leader in a low voice: "Huang Qiangmin."

The expression on the detachment leader's face instantly vanished.

At this moment, Yu Wenshu walked into the conference room.

"Old Yin, you're running back and forth..." Yu Wenshu entered and joked, laughing: "I asked you all before if you needed us to prepare an office location, and Captain Qian said no, so I didn't arrange one..."

"No need for an office location; we'll just take a look and head back." Detachment Leader Yin felt a bit embarrassed.

Yu Wenshu glanced at Jiang Yuan, then looked at Detachment Leader Yin, and laughed: "Jiang Yuan has achieved results, right? My introduction wasn't bad, was it?"

"There are indeed results." Detachment Leader Yin nodded solemnly, thought for a moment, and said: "Team Leader Yu, let's speak based on the facts; the confidentiality work in this conference room still needs to be strengthened as much as possible."

Yu Wenshu was taken aback: "Is it necessary? The confidentiality of our criminal police detachment should still be acceptable."

"I know, I just mean to strengthen it as much as possible. I don't mean anything else, but with the life and death of over a hundred people hanging here, I have to be careful." Detachment Leader Yin insisted, biting the bullet.

Yu Wenshu was unhappy, but still gave an "En."

Detachment Leader Yin explained further: "At least two days; I have to coordinate here before we can take action. At that time, I'll have to ask for your help."

"Fine, I'll seal off this corridor, clear out the offices upstairs and downstairs, send a few more groups of people to be on duty, and add double guards in front of the door; is that okay?" Yu Wenshu offered a simple plan.

"That's fine, that's fine. If you don't mind, I'll send a few more people over to stay in the conference room and at the door." Detachment Leader Yin continued to request.

Yu Wenshu nodded again, self-deprecatingly: "I've brought this upon myself."

"This time it's on me, it's on me." Detachment Leader Yin apologized repeatedly, then took out his phone and started making calls.

He spent ten minutes on this one call.

Putting down the phone, Detachment Leader Yin felt a bit embarrassed and apologized to Yu Wenshu again: "There's really no other way; the strategy we had prepared and the plan we had designed might all have to be changed now, and a few comrades don't quite understand."

"It's fine as long as you can explain it to them."

"Uh... this... a few of them might still need to come and take a look." Detachment Leader Yin said helplessly: "The case is of great importance, and it concerns how the brothers will charge into battle, so I can't act arbitrarily."

Yu Wenshu nodded slowly: "I can understand; you all go to the scene, which is much more dangerous than what we do."

"It's been much better in recent years, but if we could have the support of technical personnel like Jiang Yuan, many of our strategies and methods could truly be changed for the better..." Detachment Leader Yin looked at Jiang Yuan as he spoke, his expression beginning to warm up.

Yu Wenshu couldn't bear to watch anymore and reminded him: "Huang Qiangmin is not easy to talk to; you saw how ruthless his asking price was."

Detachment Leader Yin: "En, it is indeed quite high, but if such work efficiency can be guaranteed, it can be considered worth more than the price..."

This was the first time Yu Wenshu had seen someone bitten by a crocodile say it didn't hurt; how fat must this person be...

Yu Wenshu thought of the difference in everyone's per capita funding, felt a sudden shock, and hurriedly said: "Old Yin, you must hold your ground; you are not allowed to drive up the price."

"That won't happen, that won't happen." Detachment Leader Yin agreed, but the look in his eyes as he gazed at Jiang Yuan was already completely infatuated.