Chapter 623: Thank You

The Zhengguang Bureau's dinner was held at a Sichuan restaurant. The taste was excellent, and the spiciness wasn't too heavy. It must be said that no matter how many types of cuisine there are in the country, the reach of Sichuan cuisine is absolutely top-tier.

Moreover, with the strengthening of Sichuan cuisine's penetration, the popularity of the various seasonings and ingredients it uses is also increasing. Many local cuisines, once they leave their home region, might not even be able to find the right ingredients. Sichuan cuisine doesn't have this problem; as long as you don't choose dishes that are too strange, the materials can basically be bought. If you count the various fusion dishes, its tolerance for "authenticity" is very high.

The skills of the chefs in Jingcheng go without saying. Just a single dish of shredded pork with garlic sauce was stir-fried to an excellent taste. The complex flavor of pickled peppers, green onions, ginger, garlic, sugar, and vinegar—sweet, sour, spicy, and salty—paired with winter bamboo shoots, also known as Yulan slices. Regardless of what is considered "authentic," Jiang Yuan could only give it a thumbs up.

Jiang Yuan focused on this shredded pork with garlic sauce, pairing it with two bowls of rice. As for the other big fish and meat dishes on the table, Jiang Yuan only tasted them lightly.

These past few days, he had been satisfying his cravings with braised pork knuckles, braised beef, boiled mutton, marinated goose, roasted chicken, roasted lamb chops, and slow-roasted beef brisket sent by his father. His demand for pure chunks of meat had dropped to the lowest level.

Seeing that he liked this shredded pork with garlic sauce, Tao Lu had the restaurant serve another portion and clinked his beer glass with Jiang Yuan, laughing, "This case can be considered winding and tortuous. If it were left to reporters to write, they could write several serial installments. Forensic botany... it's really quite powerful. It should be usable in many cases, right?"

"There are still quite a few limiting conditions." Jiang Yuan didn't want to use forensic botany as a conventional weapon. This time, the case was just complex. Under normal circumstances, he had plenty of Level 5 and Level 6 techniques; why would he need to resort to this?

As for Tao Lu's preferences, Jiang Yuan wasn't that concerned.

Without waiting for Tao Lu to speak again, Jiang Yuan added, "There are still a few suspicious points left in this case, especially regarding the body. Should we continue looking for it?"

That cleaning lady had cut the body into pieces and thrown them into the property management's large dumpster. This type of dumpster is iron-made with a lid, and at a fixed time every day, a garbage truck automatically loads the trash inside.

Liu Huimin knew the garbage truck's loading time and would abandon the body pieces ahead of time each time. Coupled with the recent hot weather, no one had actually discovered body parts in the trash.

For the police, it was now somewhat difficult to retrieve the body parts. The difficulty and pain of digging through a mountain of trash were disproportionate.

Hearing Jiang Yuan's question, Tao Lu also looked troubled. He took a sip of beer, sighed, and said, "We still have to look for it."

Liu Cheng and the others, who were eating meat in large mouthfuls nearby, suddenly stopped chewing.

Everyone was a criminal police officer, and it was easy to draw this chain of reasoning: the body parts were in the mountain of trash, finding them required digging through the mountain of trash, and the people assigned to dig through the mountain of trash would, in all likelihood, be the ordinary police officers present...

In such hot weather, digging through a mountain of trash... Thinking of this, everyone lost their appetite a bit.

Tao Lu laughed, quickly raised his glass, and said, "We will definitely coordinate with the garbage disposal company first, use some of their people, and we'll provide some of our own... In any case, the case is basically solved, which is a good thing. Otherwise, we would have suffered for nothing all these days."

Everyone laughed a few times.

Jiang Yuan coughed twice, pulling the topic back, and said, "There is one more question: how did Liu Huimin know Wang Xin's phone password?"

"Facial recognition," Liu Cheng replied, adding, "That's why current biometric technology is unreliable. Passwords are actually the best; facial recognition and fingerprint recognition are just asking for trouble."

Jiang Yuan didn't commit to an opinion and said, "Liu Huimin is quite old. For a rural woman of this age, it's already good if she can understand how to use a smartphone. Could she know how to unlock a phone with facial recognition and then send a message to Wang Xin's supervisor?"

Liu Cheng, who was eating, frowned, slowly put down his chopsticks, and said, "That is a problem. Especially since Wang Xin's supervisor isn't someone inside the company; she shouldn't have been able to figure that out. However, Liu Huimin and Wang Xin dealt with each other for a long time; maybe she had heard it."

Tao Lu, however, shook his head and said, "Checking WeChat, and that... 'spontaneous trip'—an elderly person probably wouldn't think of that."

Liu Cheng: "Her daughter?"

"Yes, it means her daughter was involved more deeply than we imagined." Tao Lu spoke calmly. Solving cases often involves encountering this or that problem. Situations like the one thought of today would at most affect sentencing by a year or two; it didn't count for much.

Liu Cheng wasn't surprised, just called the criminal police officer interrogating at the bureau on the spot.

The police officer who had just mentioned the phone issue also took out his phone, scrolled through the photo album for a while, found a picture, and said, "I suddenly remembered that on the wall of Wang Xin's company, there were things like the company's hierarchy chart. Liu Huimin's daughter very likely went over and saw it."

In the photo, it was indeed a corporate culture wall at Ruicheng Design. In one of the promotional images showing off their flat management, the three-level structure was written clearly.

"We can focus on asking about this. It's best if there's surveillance to prove it," Jiang Yuan said. "It would better explain the pollen found on her clothes."

This was also a matter of the chain of evidence. Tao Lu immediately arranged for it to be prioritized.

The meal ended on a weak note. Tao Lu and Jiang Yuan were in good spirits, but Liu Cheng and the others felt immense pressure.

The next day.

Liu Cheng and the others went to the mountain of trash to perform their duties.

Liu Huimin's daughter was brought out for interrogation early. Faced with new evidence, this girl in her early twenties quickly collapsed.

Just as the criminal police had guessed, the facial recognition function on Wang Xin's phone wasn't advanced. The mother and daughter just pried her eyes open to unlock it. Liu Huimin's daughter had indeed gone down to the 22nd floor, but her original intention was to go to Wang Xin's workstation to find notes or something similar, with the goal of guessing Wang Xin's bank password, because she knew Wang Xin lived alone and had no parents or relatives around.

However, she was stopped when she entered Ruicheng Company's office area. After making up a couple of excuses, Liu Huimin's daughter returned to the rooftop to continue participating in dismembering the body.

Later, Liu Huimin's daughter even went to check the house Wang Xin rented. In her words, the mother and daughter were destined to leave Jingcheng, so they had to have some money on hand to protect themselves.

Hearing this, Liu Cheng and the others looked at each other in dismay; this was equivalent to doubling the evidence. However, these pieces of evidence or clues were useless until the source of the body was confirmed.

Of course, Liu Cheng didn't have much time to lament.

The weather was hot, the mountain of trash was piled high, and the mountain-like trash emitted a mountain-like smell. Liu Cheng led the team, walking with heavy steps, stumbling like a wild boar stuck in a swamp, and his whole body smelled even worse than a wild boar.

Just when he was about to give up, a call from Tao Lu came through.

"Don't say I don't take care of you. This time, when Jiang Yuan chose cases, the first ones I recommended were the ones left by your detachment," Tao Lu said with a laugh, trying to curry favor. "He picked the 2022 sewer body abandonment case at Wan Long Garden."

Liu Cheng looked down at the trash under his feet, looked up at the mountain of trash, sighed, and said, "Thank you." ===== CHAPTER 624 =====